


Inevitable (From The Very Start)

by onbeinganangel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Animagus, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, I just want you all to be safe, I mean I vaguely based Draco's behaviour on my OCD, I'm Bad At Tagging, Light Angst, Like A LOT of grief, M/M, Mental Health Issues, OCD if you squint, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Past Character Death, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Post-Divorce, Terminal Illnesses, also all the bad stuff happens off page, but gets mentioned ALL THE TIME, but sex keeps getting mentioned, there are only two not very smutty sex scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onbeinganangel/pseuds/onbeinganangel
Summary: Draco Malfoy isfine, really,he is. He just happens to be a complete disaster in the mortal form of a lonely widower with avery precise routine.There isn’t anythingor anyonethat could shake that up and make him realise that life is weird and everyone’s really just figuring it all out as they go along… unless he unexpectedly bumps into his child’s best friend’s father, who also happens to be his childhood rival, something of a celebrity and,apparently, freshly divorced.(Or: I let canon happen how you think it happens and then fucked with it.)
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 403
Kudos: 366





	1. An Old Classic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been in my heart for a long, long time. It came to me as a distraction from working on my original novel and the world/character building work that comes with it. It isn’t entirely plotless but I wouldn’t say it’s… plotful. Think of every chapter as a little window into the relationship between these two. I love them. I love them so much. I’d not written fanfiction in like 8 years (yikes) and this turned out to be purely, one hundred percent, self indulgent.
> 
> Lots of love and gratitude to [Sia/@dracopottermalfoy](https://dracopottermalfoy.tumblr.com) who was the best, most loveliest cheerleader and read it first, and to [Orange_Coyote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orange_Coyote/pseuds/Orange_Coyote) for reading through what was a steaming pile of misplaced commas, pointing out all my dumb mistakes and making it readable. Thank you both so much <3  
> I’ve probably overtagged - a lot of the content on the whole fic is what you’d consider your standard for these characters but I just want everyone to be safe, so here are some specific warnings for this chapter: mention of death and terminal illness (canon compliant for CC), alcohol consumption and divorce!
> 
> This whole thing is written and I am absolutely done with it, so fear not - it has an end! I'll probably be posting one or two chapters every week going forward! It'll be all out there in the world before Christmas!
> 
> Oh, also, while I’m here, have a self-explanatory statement that applies to everything, ever: fuck jk rowling.

_There is a darkness and of this darkness all things are born. When he, himself, was born, he came as light. A burst, all golden and soft. An ozone stenched strike of lightning in a thunderstorm: bright and sudden cutting against a dark indigo sky._

_The irony makes him laugh sometimes, how everything was always so dark, even when he was soft, young and innocent. Before even the ever comforting darkness was broken. And who knew his darkness could be broken? He finds, later, that he is allowed other sparks, just as sudden as his coming into the world: his mother’s embrace when he thought all was lost, the voice of his childhood rival echoing in a courtroom, a wail followed by a small blonde bundle being deposited in his arms, his best friend’s long red nails combing through his hair while he sobs on her lap, grief coursing through him like Fiendfyre. Flickers of light in an otherwise pitch-black existence._

_Draco Malfoy’s life is mostly darkness, until one day:_ light.

*

He had always been a proud person. Not that, now in his 40s, he was proud of what he used to be proud of - not at all. But a sense of self satisfaction was something that had always been part of who he was. The things he was proud of now were simple, little, everyday life joys.

On this particular cold but sunny Tuesday afternoon he found that he was proud of who he was, proud of what he had become, but mostly proud that he was able to walk to his favourite muggle pub with a small book inside his coat pocket - proud that he could sit for hours upon hours reading his novel, drinking a few pints, chatting to Brett - the landlord of said pub, where no one knew the weight that his surname carried. Draco Malfoy was proud of the fact he knew how to disappear.

He had been coming to The White Swan for a few years now. He had gotten the Muggle apartment across the road from the pub when Astoria first got admitted to St. Mungo’s, telling himself that it wasn’t an excuse to extricate himself from the Malfoy life his mother and his upbringing had him live - that it was all for the convenience of being closer to the hospital. Popping into The White Swan for liquid courage before going to see his wife or for comfort after a particularly harrowing day had become an easy routine. He had even brought Astoria over once, a couple of weeks before she had passed, her skin ashy and her hands shaking but her demeanour and sense of humour bright as always as she introduced herself to Brett as his _beard_.

The White Swan was the oddest and most perfect pub in South London. In all of London and probably Britain, if you asked Draco. From the outside, it looked like any other old cosy pub in the city. Brett had taken it over 12 years prior, choosing to keep the name and atmosphere, but draping big rainbow flags on the walls, hanging up filthy explicit illustrations behind the bar amongst the bottles, and putting the enormous tub full of condoms and lube in the loos. “You wouldn’t know The White Swan was a queer pub until you were in it,” Brett says often. “That’s the beauty of it. The curse and the blessing. If you know, you know. I love it when people come in, take a look around and immediately turn back and leave. Good riddance.”

Draco loves being in The White Swan. He knows Brett, Ryan and Tom, the bartenders, by name, and they know him. He comes and goes as he pleases, knowing that there’ll always be a table or a spot at the bar for him. He’s too old (and too complicated, if we’re being honest) for gay clubs and the trendy wine bars his dates always want to take him to. The quietness and cosiness of The White Swan suit him perfectly. It feels like _home_.

There is nothing out of the ordinary when he enters the pub that afternoon. Brett is polishing glasses behind the bar and there are a few people scattered about but, all in all, The White Swan is exactly as Draco expected it to be: quiet, safe, Muggle. He hops onto the bar stool, dropping his book on the bar with a soft thud. 

“What will it be today then?” Brett says, flashing him a smile.

“I’ll have a pint of the Neck Oil, please, Brett.” He doesn’t pause, he knows what they have on draught. He doesn’t need time to make a decision. Draco Malfoy is a creature of habit.

Brett smiles softly. “Oh, what a surprise,” he says in a teasing tone, no bite in it. “What are you reading?” 

Draco lifts Jane Austen’s Persuasion off the bar, turning the cover towards Brett. “Just re-reading an old classic.”

“Hoping an old acquaintance will come back to your life and declare his undying love for you?”

Draco snorts with laughter. That’s not even really the plot. Kind of. “Yeah, definitely.” He grabs his pint and turns towards the little table in the back he prefers. “Put it on my tab, I’ll settle it before I leave.”

“What name do you want for today?” Brett calls after him.

“It’s a Tuesday. It’ll be me and the old folk. I’m not playing.” He shrugs, knowing it won’t settle the matter.

About a year back, when Draco was freshly widowed and at the pub most nights, Brett had started a tally of how many numbers Draco got while sitting in his corner. On a particularly bad night, Draco was three whiskies in when Brett came up with the idea.

“Here’s the deal, when you come in, I’ll give you a name and you’ll give me one. We write it down. If you get any numbers from someone with the name you picked, you get a free drink. If you get any numbers from someone with the name I pick, you have to buy me a drink.” And that is how the game started.

“Come on, Draco. I know it’s quiet, we can go with something easy. I’ll say… Ben.”

Draco rolls his eyes and puts his pint down on the table, then giving Brett the finger.

“Come on, live a little!” Brett insists. For some reason, his jab at Draco’s classic literature is stuck in his mind. “ _Hoping an old acquaintance will come back…?”_ The thought is there, poking at him, and the words come out of this mouth before he can stop himself.

“Okay. I’m feeling lucky, I guess. Put Harry down.”

It’s only a couple hours later, a little after 5pm, that Draco’s peace gets disturbed. A loud group of men enters the bar, way too excited for a Tuesday. Too loud, too rowdy even if seemingly not too drunk yet. His guess was a stag do and that was just not what he needed on a quiet Tuesday. His second pint is now empty and he considers getting a third, but with the bar covered in people, he thinks it may be time to head home. 

Draco buries himself back into the comfort of the old battered armchair and focuses on his book. He will finish this chapter and then, if the noise has subsided, he will get another pint - if not, he will be on his way.

He is so focused on his book that he only notices he’s been approached when a pint is set down on his table. One of the men is standing in front of him, his own pint in hand. Before Draco can say anything, he smiles.

“I asked the barman what you were drinking. You seem to be enjoying your peace and quiet, and me and the boys are probably disturbing it, so here’s an apology.”

It isn’t much of an apology, Draco thinks. It also stops him from going home where there would be peace and quiet. 

The man in front of him is easily 15 years younger than him, perhaps even younger. He is definitely not Draco’s type, with his short blond hair and shaved baby face, but he is fit. Outfit is questionable, a mix of casual and lazy, but no one is ever quite up to his standards. Draco finds himself thinking that, maybe, he could forgive him… if his name is Harry and he’s willing to save his phone number on Draco’s phone. _In for a knut, in for a galleon,_ he thinks, and if he’s stuck here, he may as well keep getting free drinks.

“I was enjoying my peace and quiet, indeed.” Is all he says. He sounds old and bitter, he realises right after.

“I’m sorry. I hope you enjoy your pint.” The younger blond says with a grimace.

The peace is broken anyway so he figures he might as well press and find out why his perfect day has been disturbed, “So, what’s the occasion then? Stag do? Post work drinks?” Draco asks. After all, The White Swan doesn’t see big groups like this very often and he’s curious. 

The other man laughs. 

“Opposite of a stag do, really. Our boy Hazza has been going through a bit of a horrible divorce. His wife finally signed the papers this morning, so we’re celebrating.” He looks over at the group and one of the men, a tall, extremely good looking man with dark skin and a bright smile is looking back at him with a goofy smile, lifts his glass up and nods at the both of them. That must be “Hazza”, Draco decides.

“Quick thing, most of us have been at work this morning, some are doing the night shift later but we had to get a celebration drink in, you know.”

“Oh. I see. Good for him. What do you all do, then?” He really, really couldn’t care less what any of these people do.

“We’re police. Different departments and stuff, really. None of us actually work closely together. We’re the LGBTQ+ union at the station, which is how we know each other. Caleb over there”, he nods towards the man Draco had assumed to be Hazza, “lives near this place and told us it would be a good place for a quick celebratory drink.”

Policemen, uh? Draco always did like a man in uniform. Although his fantasies usually included the deep red robes of the Auror department, rather than the dark muggle police uniform, it was still something he could work with. Especially if there are handcuffs involved...

“The White Swan is lovely. It’s been a while since I’ve done it but it’s fun on a Friday night, Sundays too, if you like karaoke.”

Draco hates karaoke. It’s plebeian, it’s tacky, and 9 times out of 10, people can’t actually sing for shit. But he knows a baby gay when he sees one, and baby gays love karaoke. He’s bored now, realising there’s absolutely no chemistry between the two of them. But he is stuck with the noisy cops and his fresh pint he’s only taken two sips out of, so he’s happy making small talk for the next 20 minutes or so.

Draco is charming: it turns out that his years and years of tutoring on how to thrive as a socialite weren’t a complete waste, and he likes to think of how much it would disappoint his father that this is what Draco uses it for. He’s learnt many years ago that the best lie is a vague one, one you can maintain forever and you can say in front of everyone, so he finds it easy to talk about how he deals in finance part time (he does, no one needs to know what currency it is he deals with mostly and he’s not about to drop the “I manage my family’s multimillion fortune” line because it’s gauche to talk about money with people whose financial situation you don’t know) but he spends most of his time doing research for his PhD in Quantum Mechanics. He loses most people right there and the lie never gets difficult. Money and intricate science aren’t subjects most people are comfortable with and that has worked in his favour for many years. 

As he gulps down the last of his beer, he realises that the rest of the party that had been at the bar thus far was making their way towards the corner where he’s sat. He decides it is 100% time to go. 

Draco makes his excuses to the blonde whose name he still hasn’t grabbed, picks up his coat and book and, just as he is going around the table he’d been sat in, he notices at the very end of the group now settling around the table next to him, chatting animatedly with a silver fox of a gentleman, the last person Draco expected to see. The vision almost makes him choke on his own spit.

Their eyes meet and they both speak at the same time. 

“Holy fuck.”

“Harry Potter.”

The unnamed too-friendly blonde pipes up immediately. “Oh, you know Hazza!”

It almost doesn’t register. But then: Hazza. _Hazza_. As in "got divorced this morning” Hazza. Fuck.

Eyes never leaving his, Potter seems to blush a little bit, his hand instinctively going behind his neck as if he’d suddenly gotten an itch.

“Uhh, lads, this is Draco Malfoy.” Sweet Merlin, have mercy. Draco should probably intervene before Potter says something he shouldn’t.

They speak at the same time again.

“We went to school together.”

“Our kids go to school together.”

A ripple of low laughter goes around the group. They both know it was technically the honest to Salazar truth but immediately sounded like a lie. _Great_.

_“Hoping an old acquaintance will come back to your life and declare his undying love for you?”_

Draco was starting to suspect Brett was a seer. After all, he’d predicted Astoria’s death, too. Exact date and time of the day. 

He was suddenly glad he had put some effort in what he looked like that morning. It was only a Tuesday at the pub, it wasn’t like he was trying, but he knew he had stepped foot in that establishment looking much, much worse in the past.

The surprise here, however, wasn’t how good Draco looked - he always looked good. The surprise was how good Potter looked, in his muggle three piece navy blue suit with the thinnest faint grey pinstripes. They’d last seen each other the year before, when Potter had brought his kids over for Astoria’s memorial. He’d turned up with Albus by the hand and Lily, who was definitely no longer small enough to be propped on her father’s hip the way she was. The exact picture of his father back in the day (if it wasn’t for the bright red of his hair), James stood tall next to them, holding a beautiful arrangement of lilies. 

Albus had grabbed the wreath and carefully placed it at the front, just under the photo of a smiling Astoria in a sundress, eyes crinkling at the corners with silent laughter, before sitting next to Scorpius, whose hand he held all the way through the ceremony and late into the night.

The remaining Potters had stood at the back for the entirety of the service and left without saying a word at the end. At one point Draco had looked over and shared a curt nod with Potter senior and got a polite sad smile in return.

It hadn’t been the time to check Harry Potter out. Now, on the other hand, it was impossible not to.

It was only then that someone else spoke, snapping him out of his reverie.

“Well, fellas, not to kill the mood but we were just grabbing Tony and heading out. Some of us are doing the night shift later and I won’t hear any shit about any of you being late or inebriated,” one of the older men says.

“Aye aye, sir. Let’s get going, you lot.”

Tony, it turns out, was the young blond who had been miserably failing at making conversation with Draco for the past half hour.

There’s a general groan of disappointment, but they also seem to agree it’s time to leave. They all wave to Draco and exchange pleasantries.

Potter’s gaze lingers for a little too long and he mumbles, before he goes towards the door.

“Yeah, it was nice seeing you, Malfoy.”

If that hadn’t been the weirdest 45 minutes of Draco’s life, he didn’t know what would qualify. 

Realising he was still standing awkwardly, Draco made his way to the bar, bringing a few empty pint glasses over to Brett.

“That was an odd little group, wasn’t it?” Brett says as he takes the glasses off him.

Still taken aback by the whole situation, he nods, not quite sure where his voice has gone.

Just as he’s paying, the door to the pub opens again, and there’s Potter. _Again_.

Looking like he just jogged back, hair wild as ever he says: “Hey, Malfoy?”

“Potter.” What. The. Fuck.

“Did you hear I got divorced today?”

What!? “Erm, yes?”

Potter has that bashful look plastered on his face again. “Good. Yeah. Well, uh, it really was good seeing you.”

Harry Potter advances towards him and now has his hand on the bar, on top of Draco’s copy of Persuasion. The brunette is so close now that Draco can smell the sour, hoppy scent of beer on his breath, his minty shampoo. He feels like he may or may not be having whatever an aneurysm is.

Potter backs toward the door for the second time that day, and that’s when Draco spots the small piece of paper on top of his book. 

_“Okay. I’m feeling lucky, I guess. Put Harry down,”_ he had said to Brett.

_Feeling lucky._

He gathers all his courage and, as a way of parting, Draco finally finds his voice. 

“Potter? Congratulations on your divorce. Best news I’ve heard in a while.”

And just like that Harry Potter flashes him a smile so bright he could put the sun to shame, and is gone from The White Swan.

Unfolding the little piece of paper, Draco finds that it simply has a mobile phone number and three short words under it: “ _or owl me x_ ”.

He's gotten a number from a Harry, but somehow the game doesn’t matter anymore. He doesn’t bother telling Brett about it before he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please share your thoughts about this with me, here or on [on tumblr](https://onbeinganangel.tumblr.com), because, as a faceless creator on the internet, I require validation to live. I’m not fussy. Just… let me know how you feel!  
> Also, big love to my local pub I've not set foot in since March ( _*cries in quarantine*_ ) for the inspiration for The White Swan. I miss you and yearn for you every day.


	2. A Stone in His Leather Loafers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a little overwhelmed at how lovely so many people were about the first chapter - I was not expecting anyone to read this until it was all posted, so that was a darling little surprise <3 I've got another chapter coming at the end of the week so you won't have to wait long!
> 
> Warnings for this one are pretty much the same as the previous chapter: mention of canon compliant violence and consequent trauma, nightmares, alcohol consumption, coming out, divorce and the tiniest mention of past alcohol abuse.
> 
> Honestly this sounds heavy but it’s really not - it’s honestly a relatively fluffy chapter.

As soon as he leaves the pub, Draco decides to wait until the next day to text Potter. He’s not a teenager and one can’t seem too eager in situations like this, so he waits. 

He floos Mother at 11am, asks if he can borrow her copy of the Prophet. She’s surprised to see him on a Wednesday morning, and perhaps a little suspicious. “The business section, dear?” she asks. “If I could please have the whole thing, Mother, that would be lovely. I’ll send it back in an hour.” But he finds nothing about Harry Potter and Ginevra Weasley’s divorce. 

For a second, he thinks he may have dreamt the whole thing, but then his eyes fall on the crumpled up note that sits on his hallway sideboard next to his keys. He types then deletes dozens of messages. It’s well after lunch when he decides it’s time to stop being a pretentious knob and get on with it. He keeps it simple, hoping Potter reads it in the tone of voice in which he means it.

_“Potter. Dinner?”_

He can’t say he likes the waiting game that is texting but at least it’s not owl post. Draco had become very attached to his mobile phone in recent years and was constantly baffled by how medieval the state of the wizarding world was when it came to technological advancement.

Potter texts back quicker than he expected.

_“Malfoy, I assume. What about dinner?”_

Rowena on a cracker. Why did Potter have to be so… infuriatingly himself?

_“Of course it’s me, you impossible twat. How many people do you give your number to daily? And dinner, as in would you like some?”_

Draco would rather never have to admit it, but he had recently taken up chatting with a photograph of his deceased wife. Not a portrait, even. She doesn’t speak back. But she would have loved to know Draco is potentially going on a date with Potter.

“Tori. Tori. This is insane, isn’t it?” She smiles and tucks a strand of sea-wavy hair behind her ear. That’s all she ever does. Gods. He closes his eyes and wishes she could talk back. He misses her every hour of the day. He opens his eyes just in time to see her tucking her hair behind her ear again. “He’s just divorced. Our kids are friends. What am I doing?”

He knows what she would have said if she could. A soft smile in her eyes, her voice kind: “It’s about time you stop sabotaging yourself and go for what you want, baby.”

The text notification pops up and he wonders if Potter is, just like him, sitting around the house in his pants and an old T-shirt, texting him.

“ _Wow. Have you just insulted and asked me out to dinner in the same text?”_

Draco finds that he must roll his eyes even though there’s no one there to see it. 

A second text comes right after:

_“And yes, dinner sounds good. I was actually going to invite you, didn’t think you’d be forward enough to suggest dinner on your first text.”_

He can’t help but feel pride in the fact that he had outmanoeuvred Potter. 

On Friday, Draco has a rare nightmare. These used to be frequent, back in the day, and he now wonders how he ever survived. Part of it is still what it used to be: memories of the Dark Lord, his giant snake sliding across the wooden floors and circling his bed, the sounds of Greyback mauling people in the room next to where he slept, Harry Potter’s “dead” body in Hagrid’s arms, the Fiendfyre. Now mixed up with a heavy dose of Astoria in her coffin - looking like she was just asleep, Astoria falling down the stairs before her diagnosis, Astoria coughing up blood all over their pristine white bedsheets and anything involving Scorpius being hurt.

He wakes up with a gasp, covered in sweat, the image of a tiny Scorpius with a face so full of fear it reminds him of his own, circa 1997, burnt inside his eyelids. Of course his brain would betray him with a nightmare the day he is meeting Potter for dinner. 

Friday is dreary, dark, foggy and grey in its unique London way. He is sweaty and sticky and his stomach is in knots. He pretends it’s all because of the nightmare, pretends he’s not nervous like a schoolboy.

With a sigh, he strips his bed, himself, and makes his way to the bathroom. A shower will sort him out and remind him that, logically, Scorpius is safe and sound at Hogwarts and there is no need to be the parent that Floos the school just to make sure his baby is okay.

He emerges from a long hot shower just after 8am to a text from Potter:

 _“Malfoy, I was hoping I’d be the one to invite you to dinner. Since I can’t impress you with my invitation or fancy restaurant choice, I was hoping I could pick you up later? Say 7? Gives us time to head off to wherever it is you’re taking us and get a drink or something?”_

Wednesday and Thursday had been filled with constant flirtatious texting. Draco wasn’t sure what Potter did these days (Police? Surely it would have been public knowledge if The Saviour had left the Auror force?) but whatever his job was shouldn’t allow for this much texting. Draco himself had done very little. Research had all been pushed to one side since Tuesday and he’d written a couple of owls - not nearly as much as he would get done on an average week. He was grateful he didn’t have to pop over to Cambridge any time soon and he was able to communicate with his supervisor via email if inspiration struck. 

He ponders over Potter’s text as he drinks his first cup of tea of the day. Potter wanted to take him to a fancy restaurant. To _impress_ him. The decision was made quicker than it should have been but in the next hour he had called the restaurant he had booked to cancel their reservation and then rushed to the shops to get all he needed for an homemade feast. Potter wanted to do something out of character, for him. So Draco would surprise him and cook for him, instead of taking him out. He spends the rest of the day cleaning, cooking and making sure he, as well as the menu, look good enough to eat. He doesn’t overdo it: a thin soft black turtleneck over wooly grey trousers. They’re only staying in anyway.

At 10 to 7, he thinks he may spew. _No, faint. No, definitely spew. When did it get this hot?_ At 5 to 7, he realises Potter is still a child and it doesn’t matter at all that it has been over 20 years since the war, this is probably all a big joke for him, it doesn’t matter their children are best friends and they’ve managed to be cordial to each other this entire time and even make friendly conversation a good handful of times at Ministry functions. At 2 minutes to 7, he calms himself down using the _Pansy-in-his-head_. At 7, he convinces himself it’s probably for the best if Potter isn’t actually going to turn up. 

The knock on the door comes at 2 minutes past 7, just as he is considering throwing an _Incendio_ at the food.

He puts a stasis over everything, checks the table is set impeccably, takes the apron off and casts a quick freshening charm over himself. It won’t do to meet guests smelling of food (or sweat, or panic).

He opens the door and says “You’re late,” which he regrets immediately when he’s met with the big, cheeky smile that makes his knees weak on the face of one Harry Potter wearing plum coloured trousers and a matching waistcoat over a plain white shirt. _Fuck_. If looking obscenely good wasn’t enough, Potter is holding a bouquet of faint pink peonies, green baby hydrangeas and lilac hyacinths. _Merlin save us all._

 _“I’m so sorry. Neville would not shut up about the bloody flowers and you know you can’t Apparate from Hogwarts so then I had to run all the way down to Hogsmeade and Apparate across the road in the alley next to the pub and run here, and then I couldn’t actually figure out what door was yours and I almost tried to get into the office downstairs which would definitely have gotten me arrested and made me even more late.”_ He practically says it all in one breath. 

In some part of his brain, the one that works and is logical and doesn’t fall victim to Harry Potter’s natural charisma, Draco is furious. He is furious because he knows he is one of the smartest, most intelligent wizards he knows. However, he is standing in his front door, mouth agape, and the only thing he manages to croak out is “You… went all the way to Hogwarts for flowers?”

He lets Potter in, the fact that he’s not wearing a coat bothering him as it goes against the plan he’d made up in his head. _If I don’t take his coat, will the rest of the night go like I rehearsed?_ He settles for replacing the taking of the coat with grabbing a vase for the flowers and courageously ploughs on. Potter compliments his house. “It’s not what I was expecting for you bachelor pad,” he teases. Draco shows him the flat-wide glamour work that hides all magic and all photos of his family and friends. He can’t tell for sure but he thinks Potter is impressed.

It is awkward at first. Draco gets them drinks. (“Wine is fine,” Potter says, “Didn’t take you for a wine type, Potter,” he says because he can’t help himself and bickering is his go-to when it comes to Harry fucking Potter. “I imagine there’s a lot of preconceptions you may have about me that are completely wrong, Malfoy,” and with that, he’s defeated). 

Stifled questions, broken answers, dancing around subjects that no one ever wants to talk about, but they manage to keep conversation going, somehow. The brunette is as lovely as always. Well, Draco supposes he doesn’t mean _always_ , not like that anyway. Lovely isn’t what Draco would have described Harry Potter as, probably not any time before he turned 19, at the very earliest. But _he is_ lovely and Draco recognises maybe he always has been - just not to him. 

They hover around the kitchen table for a little. When Draco explains he’s made dinner and they’re not going out, he realises that’s a bit forward. _Why didn’t he realise the implications of staying in before?_

While Draco is internally cringing at his decision not to go out, Potter, for some inexplicable reason, seems to suddenly get a hundred times more comfortable than he was initially. He is sat at the table on the long bench he’s got on one side, one hand on the table, the other casually swirling his wine. 

They discuss the kids because that’s safe. _“How’s Scorp?” “Who the fuck is Scorp? My son’s name is Scorpius.” “You call Al Al, so don’t give me that ‘no nicknames’ bullshit.” “Potter, the thing is I just wasn’t stupid enough to name my child Albus Severus. Scorpius is a lovely name, it doesn’t need to be shortened.”_

They discuss their jobs and lives, a thing people do. _“What’s the deal with the police, then?” “I hate the Aurors but can’t really quit because I’m, well, me. So people think I work for the Aurors, which I do in a way. The public thinks I’m away on ridiculous important missions taking down dark wizards, but I’m actually working with Scotland Yard, as a liaison officer. You wouldn’t believe the amount of ‘inexplicable muggle crime’ that turns out to be magic.”_ Draco doesn’t want to lie to Harry Potter, so he tells him he’s studying, on top of managing the Malfoy estate. Potter doesn’t press, and he doesn’t explain further. He realises right after he’d never told a witch or a wizard that before, except for the people at university. Not Scorpius, not Mother. No one knows he’s studying, but he tells Potter. He finds that he doesn’t mind that.

Food helps. Well, drink helps, he thinks, mostly. But the food too. He tells Potter about the menu, all his favourite things he used to love from when Mother took him to France during the school holidays. Traditional onion soup, asparagus cheese soufflé, a lavender crème brûlée. 

He doesn’t know how he actually gets anything eaten because he’s very aware of watching the other man the whole time. He lists the things that have changed since Hogwarts in his mind: Potter’s hair (now long enough that he keeps it in a big messy bun at the top of his head and makes Draco wonder how it would look like _out_ of said bun), Potter’sshort _beard,_ his clothes that actually fit him, his gentler speech but more confident manner, not to mention his legs, his round-as-a-peach arse, his strong arms. Every time his brain goes in that direction, Draco hits the brakes violently and steers the other way with pressing urgency. He then starts to list the things that haven’t changed since Hogwarts: Harry Potter is polite, like a shy boy meeting his friend’s mother for the first time, his eyes shine with mirth and mischief every time he laughs at one of Draco’s jokes or he throws back a cheeky remark, he eats like a starved man, like a man who knows he’ll never eat again, he compliments Draco’s prowess on his unsunk soufflès, sops up the bits of onion gravy from the bottom of his soup using thick chunks of sourdough baguette, he licks the crème brûlée spoon like… _oh Godric, think of something else already._

Conversation is easier after dinner. “How’s the divorce working out for you?” he asks. He doesn’t really care, in a way. It’s an intrusive question, for one. But it’s polite, as well, seeing as it’s not public knowledge yet.

“Oh, you know, it’s not like anything is that different.”

That… is an unexpected answer. “How do you mean?”

“You know Gin and I have been separated for like 3 years now, right?” _What!?_ He most certainly _does not_ know that. 

“How would I know that?” he snaps back quickly.

“Oh.” Potter’s brows furrow in confusion. “Scorpius was at ours when we told the kids, I figured he would have told you.” Potter shrugs then and Draco is very aware that is looking more shocked than he probably should and then, suddenly, Potter’s voice raises one octave: “Wait, shit, I have been flirting with you at Ministry dinners for years and you thought I was happily married this whole time!?”

“Scorpius was WHAT!? Wait, no. You were WHAT!? Oh, that actually makes so much sense. I have been bumping into your wif-, er, ex-wife, at… er, very exclusive quidditch parties and I always felt bad for her that she didn’t seem to ever leave with anyone…”

Harry Potter’s perfect bushy eyebrows raise, curiously.

“You go to those, eh?”

_So he does know about “those.” Interesting._

“Mhmm,” he says simply. It is not necessarily where he wants the conversation going tonight.

“Oh, you know. Not the best thing that’s ever happened. It was hard on James, mostly, I think. Al seems to talk things over with Scorpius and that sorts him out. Lily is an old soul, so much that I think she was happy about it. She’s wiser than all of us put together. They’re all insufferable lovely brats, really.”

“Ha. I wonder who they take after.” That gets a laugh out of Potter.

“Malfoy, your kid is an angel and you were the most insufferable brat I’ve ever met.”

“You forgot lovely.”

“Oh, yeah.”, he says, voice dripping with sarcasm, “Mr. ‘My Father Will Hear About This.’ _Lovely_.”

They’re a bottle and a half in when he finds the courage to ask why Potter had decided to come out as bisexual years ago, while seemingly very much happily married, weeks before his second son was born. It had shaken the magical world to its core and made an immense impact in the wizarding gay community.

Draco listens as he tells him about how the timing was due to Finnigan and Thomas (now both Finnigan, apparently) having trouble adopting. Draco can’t help but make a joke about Potter’s self sacrificial nature. 

Potter laughs and Draco isn’t sure if it’s the wine or the mood or how comfortable he feels, but he is pretty sure Harry Potter and his full belly laugh across from him in his kitchen is the most beautiful thing he’s ever experienced. 

“Truth is, I’d wanted to come out for ages and it never seemed like it was the right time. Ever since I found out about Sirius and Remus I’d wanted to tell people. It was important that people knew because if I’d known about them while they were both alive maybe it wouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to figure out why I couldn’t stop ogling everyone in the quidditch changing rooms or why the thought of Ron’s brothers had the same effect on me as Ron’s sister.”

It takes a few minutes for the shock to pass. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin? He needs 5 minutes of _(very grown up and totally not toddler like, thank you very much)_ giggling and another 5 of repeatedly asking Potter if he isn’t just pulling his leg for it to actually make sense. The “ogling everyone in the quidditch changing rooms” comment is filed away in his brain in a folder he titles “ _Things That May Come In Handy at a Later Time.”_

There is a reverence and a love like he’s never heard before from anyone in Potter’s voice when he talks about Sirius Black. Even if, as he goes, every now and then a shadow of a grimace crosses Potter’s features for a second. Draco’s used to that now. He imagines everyone from their generation is: most memories are tainted by war and death and grief. 

It’s when he mentions that on top of Sirius being Potter’s godfather as well as his own mother’s cousin, Potter is also godfather to Lupin’s boy, who in his turn, is Draco’s second cousin once removed that the conversation turns a little difficult. 

Potter smiles. “Oh yeah, I forget that,” he says. And then, unprompted, Potter bares it all for him. “So, yeah. The timing was all Dean and Seamus. I’d told Gin I didn’t want to hide it, there was no reason to hide and I’d told myself that I wouldn’t live like Sirius and Remus had to. The only reason I know about them is because I inherited 12 Grimmauld Place, you know? The Black house?” Draco nods.

“After the war, I hid in there for ages. I was drunker than anyone that depressed and that alone should ever be and…” Potter stops to clear his throat, running his hands through his messy hair. “Anyway, I ended up passing out on the floor in what used to be Sirius’ room. Did that a lot. One day I found these letters in a trunk and god, Malfoy, it felt like a horrible, dirty invasion of privacy but I couldn’t stop myself. There were all these letters that Sirius had written Remus during their Hogwarts days and then during the first war. Then a big gap, and then all these letters that Remus wrote to Sirius while he was in Azkaban. He wrote to him every ful-, er, every month. So much of it was obvious as well during the little time I knew them, and I didn’t see it. They loved each other so fucking much and they lost it all.”

Draco watches the struggle as the brunette speaks, the way his hands grab at the wine glass, how he plays with the cuffs of his shirt. He notices the deep gulps of wine and the way Harry's Adam’s apple bobs. “You read them all?”

“Cried for days. Weeks, maybe, I don’t know. I know a couple of favourites by heart. Sirius’ are the best for banter, little snippets of my mum and dad’s lives. Some of them were a little… er, racy… which was kind of awful. Really hot but also what I imagine it’d be like reading about my parents’ sex lives.” He laughs and flushes beautifully. “Remus’ are the saddest. Took me a while to go through the ones he mentions me in, when he was teaching at Hogwarts. It still hurts me that I didn’t realise. He was… I don’t know, he was meant to be like, my uncle, you know? Uncle Padfoot and Uncle Moony, my mum and dad’s best friends. And he was just a stranger to me, my teacher. I can’t imagine how much it would have hurt him.”

And then suddenly Harry Potter has stood up and is battling his cuff button on his left sleeve.

“Fuck, how did I forget - let me show you… er…” he hesitates as he’s rolling up his sleeve and then Draco gets it. On Potter’s left forearm there’s a muggle tattoo of a wolf and a black shaggy dog curled into one another, snouts almost touching. Above the tattoo in rushed but neat handwriting are the words “brightest star in the sky”, under it in beautiful proper cursive is one word only: “moonbeam”.

“I always glamour these when I’m out in the wizarding world. I know it’s stupid to say about something that’s on my body where everyone can see it but… it’s private.” If anyone gets it, it’s Draco. _If only his forearm tattoo would take a glamour._

“It’s their handwriting. What they’d call each other on their letters.”

It doesn’t take Draco long to figure it out. He too has a celestial name and he had enough private tutoring and Hogwarts classes on the matter of the night sky to know who the brightest star is. The other one takes a little longer to click but he feels his face involuntary pulling a sad smile when he remembers Professor Lupin’s relationship with the moon. _Fucking hell._

Potter is now unbuttoning the other cuff and rolling the other sleeve just as hastily as he did the first one. A little part of Draco registers that this would be hot as fuck if the mood was different.

A stag and a doe done in the exact same style as the wolf and the black dog on the other arm decorate this one. Above this one, there’s a childish round typewriter style “My darling” and under it a chicken scratch, barely readable “Flower.” 

He actually knew about these, the Patronuses. He’d heard it from Scorpius who had heard it from Al. Lily and James Potter. Suddenly, the temperature dropped. They were no longer discussing Potter coming out as bisexual right before the birth of his second son and the media fest that it was, or his need to save everyone, or the bizarre concept of Remus Lupin and Sirius Black’s relationship.

His heart clenched for the man in front of him. Saviour of the world, The Chosen One, The Boy Who Lived, The Boy Who Lived _Twice_. 40 year old Harry Potter who had been an orphan for what one would consider his entire life and never got to make a decision for himself until very recently. Raised by Muggles, continuously fed to the wolves by Dumbledore. Expected the world of, from the ripe age of 11. 

As if reading Draco’s thoughts, Potter clears his throat. “So. Yeah, anyway. Should have come out way before Gin and I got married but shit got in the way, and then I just pulled what Gin would call a “Classic Harry” and came home from the pub one day, got Luna round, and we did the interview. It was out the next morning.”

The silence that comes after is unbearable. It spreads like a glass of red wine toppled over a white table cloth. Neither of them know where to go from here.

“Do you want t-”

“I shoul-”

_Bollocks._

“We need to stop doing that,” Potter says, laughing again and unknowingly giving Draco back approximately 10 years of his life that he just thought he’d lost.

“Yeah, I bet your coworkers thought we were lying.”

“Oh, yeah. They did. But it worked out because they convinced me to run back and give you my number.

The smirk is back. “Needed convincing, did you?”

“Malfoy, I didn’t think you’d ever agree to a date with me.” Harry’s bright smile doesn’t leave but does dim a little.

“Is that what this was? A date?”

“Oh. I hoped it w-”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Scarhead. You make it so easy to mess with you.”

Draco has never once failed at moving a date from the dinner table to the sofa but Harry Potter has always been an exception, a stone in his leather loafers that he, in a rare, rather masochistic decision, refuses to remove. 

“I’d love to sit and have a drink, don’t think I don’t. But I have work in the morning. You know, harmless quaffles to remove from unhappy neighbours’ gardens, kneazles to rescue from trees. It’s time to apparate home, I’m afraid.” Potter shrugs with a little careless wave of his hand, accidentally brushing Draco’s wrist a little, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake.

Draco wants to complain, but at least there has been the admission of flirting and that this had been a date - so not all was lost. He’s a little conflicted about how he feels which, in retrospect, it’s partially because of the wine. Which reminds him: “Are you sure you’re good to Apparate? You can use the Floo.”

“Aw, Malfoy, you care,” he says, and then has the nerve to wink! _Wink!_ “Plus, I’d have to connect the Floo from my side to allow that. Security measures that come with being famous and all that.”

“As a courtesy, I am informing you in advance that you’re not gonna like this.” He pulls out his wand, surprised at how Potter doesn’t even flinch and whispers the incantation for a sobering charm.

“Ow. Fuck.” Potter says, rubbing his forehead and pushing his knuckles into his closed eyes. “Hate that bloody charm. You had most of the wine anyway!”

“Do me, then.”

“Well, that’s bold, Malfoy.” But before he can even reply, he gets hit with the bucket of ice that is a sobering charm.

“Wandless!?”

“Get used to it, Malfoy.” _There’s_ that fucking cheeky smile again.

“I’ll see you again soon?”

“Yeah. I’m taking you out next. I’ve got a plan.” Potter plays with the cuffs of his shirt and does a motion that should have helped smooth his baby hairs but does nothing at all.

“Worrying.”

“Ha bloody ha. I’ll text you.”

“Yeah, okay.”

And, just like that, Harry Potter kisses his cheek tenderly and Disapparates as soon as he pulls away. If Draco gets in bed 15 minutes later and touches his hand to his cheek like he’s a girl in a shit coming of age film, he decides no one needs to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Feelings? Share them with me! Please?


	3. India, Which Happens To Be In Sheffield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone say “can we please have a second date, Marion”!? Aye, you can. I wasn't going to post this until tomorrow but _everything is stressful right now_ and we all deserve a second date.
> 
> I was very scared of writing this chapter and am even more scared to post it so major love and thanks go to my pals V and M for looking over this even though V hates HP in general and M hates this particular pairing but it was super important to me that, as a white girl, I got Harry’s background story right and didn’t cliché the fuck out of it. Thank you, friends <3  
> M, I named a character after you (surprise!!), thank you for being my very very first internet friend like over ten years ago.
> 
> Warnings for: mention of canon compliant death and consequent trauma and a quick mention of a shitty childhood being locked in a bloody cupboard, etc etc etc.

The texting doesn’t stop. Draco tries to pretend that life is the same, but he knows he wouldn’t fool anyone. The news of Harry and Ginevra’s divorce break first thing on Monday morning and Wizarding Britain absolutely, to put it bluntly, loses its shit.

Draco walks into his meeting in Cambridge with a pep in his step having done significant progress in narrowing down his thesis topic, only to be asked if “he had heard the devastating news.” He leaves Cambridge two hours after, exhausted and in dire need of a cup of tea or, perhaps, a whiskey.

 _“Why is everyone talking to me about you? Did I wake up in 1999?”_ he texts Potter as soon as he gets home and gets a start on dinner.

_“Because I’m so handsome and wonderfully charming, of course. Just wait until I quit the Aurors, that’ll be fun.”_

_“Oh, is that where I come in? You’re playing at a late rebellion? Divorcing, retiring, cavorting with a known death eater?”_ It’s half a wicked thought and half a mad fear. _“What’s next? I know about the tattoos now, so I’m guessing a wild haircut? Nose ring?”_

He won’t say it but he’s hoping the wild haircut isn’t part of the plan. If he gets lucky, he’ll get to run his fingers through Potter’s untamed curls at some point.

 _“You’re not that.”_ the next text from Harry says. He grimaces, he’s not sure he wants to reply to that. Thankfully, Harry texts again within the minute. _“A nose ring would suit me and you know it ;)”_

He’s always hated when Potter was right.

Draco loves a midweek break, often takes a day from research on a Tuesday or Wednesday, especially because he ends up working on Sundays to distract himself from how unbearable it is to sit through a minimum-of-five-course meal with his Mother in a house that feels like death, so it suits him perfectly when Potter asks him if he’s free on Wednesday. Part of him has a little freak out at seeing each other again so soon, but is it really that different if they’re gonna text each other every other minute from dusk until dawn?

Potter is very secretive about their second date, which is fair really if you consider that Draco didn’t give Potter much to go on about their first date and changed it last minute anyway. He was pretty sure he wasn’t about to get invited over to Potter’s. His main concern was what to wear: Muggle, wizard, casual, smart, formal? His date was no help and when Draco asked him he said “just wear whatever you would to the pub, like the other day when I bumped into you.” And there was really no way in hell Draco was getting caught on a date wearing a soft, old t-shirt with jeans and just a coat on top.

The wind is blowing on Wednesday but at least it isn’t raining. Draco doesn’t know what to think about London weather recently - the cold makes it all the way down to your bones but the lack of rain is unsettling. He likes the rain, he likes how London feels in the rain, the certainty that things are as they should be.

Harry Potter turns up at his door five minutes early this time. Draco doesn’t comment, but he is a little impressed. He is a little wary when he gets asked how comfortable he is with big Apparition jumps, but goes with it. “You’re not Apparating me across an ocean, are you, Potter?” Instead of an answer he gets a warm, large hand wrapped around his and feels the immediate sucking sensation of Apparition. 

He doesn’t recognise the place where they’ve landed, which is no surprise since it happens to be a cramped dark alley - could be London still, could be Paris, could be New York: a dark alley is a dark alley.

“So, where are we?” He had settled for a pair of black slacks and a green cashmere blend jumper over a white shirt. He’d put a coat on to fight the cold and, just before leaving the house, he’d spotted his old Slytherin scarf hanging off the hook on the wall and the pull of temptation was too hard to fight.

That had given both himself and Potter a good laugh when the other man turned up wearing his signature red and gold wrapped tightly around his own neck.

“C’mon. I hope you like Indian food?” He wants to say “what if I don’t?” But he is getting hungry and he does love an Indian, so he just follows Potter out of the alley silently.

Then Potter looks back at Draco over his shoulder and says “I’m taking you to India...” Draco merely raises an eyebrow in response. “... which happens to be in Sheffield,” Potter finishes, with a little laugh. 

Draco scrutinises the buildings, the little shop fronts, the people around them, and feels massively overdressed. He looks inside every single shop as they walk past them: a brightly lit chip shop, a messy hairdressers, an off license, a tiny minimarket, a cafe that looks as if it’s been closed permanently for months, a charity shop, a barbers. Before he can ask where exactly he’s being taken, Potter crosses the road and stops in front of a triangular shaped shop front that houses a takeaway restaurant. The bright sign at the apex of the triangle reads “India”. Potter opens the door and gestures in with an “after you”.

“Harry!” says an old lady behind the counter. “It’s been ages, son.”

Harry embraces her like one would a mother. “Hi, Mahika.” And then he looks over at Draco and opens his mouth. Draco imagines he was about to be introduced but a man appears from a door on the left side and says, “Oh! Has Harry brought his young man with him? Finally!”

Draco is a little confused, and a little scared, but allows Harry to usher him through the door the man had just come out of, and before he knows it, he’s sat at a table across from Potter again. 

“Don’t let them put you off,” Potter says. “They mean well. They just like to meddle.”

They get drinks and Draco gets interrogated on what Indian delicacies he’s familiar with and how much spice he can handle. 

As Potter chats with a couple of girls about what they have and haven’t got today, Draco does his best to follow but really, he just wants a good look around. This isn’t a restaurant, at least not a sit-in one, and he’s got the very distinct feeling their table and chairs have been transfigured. But Potter is doing the thing again, just as he did when Draco had told him they weren’t going out for dinner - Potter is comfortable, at home almost. 

He hears him now, ordering for both of them what sounds like quite a lot of food, much of it that Draco is not very sure he’s ever heard of. When the young girl that took their order disappears into the kitchen from a curtain, Draco lifts an eyebrow as if to raise a question he’s not very sure how to phrase.

“They’re my adopted family. Kind of. They knew my grandparents. The Potters, if that wasn’t obvious. They came from India together in the 50s. My grandparents lived in the flat above this shop when they first settled in England, before Sleakeazys got big and they moved to London, and then to Godric’s Hollow.”

During dinner, Draco discovers more about Potter’s story than he could ever have imagined. He doesn’t know what to make of Potter, and he wants to tell him. _Who are you and how did you become so confident and articulate and so fucking beautiful?_

Draco gets that if anything has changed within himself since Hogwarts, it’s that he’s become more socially awkward. His confidence and arrogance had definitely come from a lifetime of thinking he was better than everyone and, as he realised he very much wasn’t, he slowly became his own currently disastrous self.

_“Draco, you’ve always been a shy little thing,” Astoria used to say. She used to make him better, the firecracker she was. Astoria had been good at everything - and he meant everything. Her social skills were everyone’s delight, and Draco reveled in that. Basked in her light whenever they were out together. He felt a pang of guilt at the fact he was on a date with a man he’s dreamed of since he knew he was gay, thinking of his deceased wife he’d only ever had platonic feelings for._

Food came, and, just as he’d guessed, it was a feast. Potter talks him through the menu as if he works there, telling him to be careful about the ones that would burn his mouth because “they’re probably straight out of the pan”, the ones that may be a little on the spicy side, the ones he should dip this way, or eat with that or “definitely try this one, Malfoy, it’s _so good._ ”

He tells Draco about how he’d found the Chowdhrys and how much he’d discovered about himself in the years after the war. Apparently he hadn’t even known when his family had arrived in the UK until he found his parents’ murder files in the evidence room back at the Ministry.

Potter was still at the Aurors working a hard case when he spotted the evidence box labelled “Potter, Lily. Potter, James” and found that all those years there had been an enormous amount of personal belongings of his parents found by the Aurors the night he became the Boy Who Lived, sitting on a shelf at the very bowels of the DMLE. His father's glasses, a hair clip that belonged to his mother, their wedding rings and his mother's engagement ring, Their wallets, a picture of his grandparents from his father's side and a tiny, claw scratched phone book. It was in that phone book that he’d found the Chowdhrys. And that was how Harry had come to this tiny Indian takeaway shop and found all about his family - everything he’d never known.

“Hermione helped me, of course she did, because where would I be without her.” Potter shrugs as he says it, as if it’s just nature - Harry Potter has been dependent on Hermione Granger for years and that is nothing to be ashamed about, his demeanour says. “But really, more than helping me find them and everyone else connected to my family, she pushed me to want to learn more. I was raised as a white boy, well, I was barely raised, if you’re using the word correctly, but you know, I never realised how much I didn’t know about where I came from until much, much later.“

Draco couldn’t fully grasp it, of course he didn’t, but he had grown up in a Manor House surrounded by the portraits of his ancestors going back centuries, had it ingrained in him from as soon as he could walk how important family history, legacy and all that was. So he got that. Not knowing where you come from seemed unthinkable to him. 

“So I thought I’d bring you here,” Potter says in between mouthfuls of delicious paneer. ”I want you to know me.“

Draco’s heart does a somersault. 

And then Potter has obviously had enough of talking about himself as he completely changes the subject. “Tell me about all your Elton John records.”

Draco laughs. 

He supposes he should start from the very beginning, so he tells Potter how he learnt everything Muggle from the library.

Shortly before Draco’s wedding, Pansy and Draco had found that muggles had libraries and decided that was the best course of action. Draco sacrificed himself first. Went in, browsed and explored all the different sections and categories. He read in the library, absorbing as much information as his brain could take. Then, one day, a kind librarian told him if he was gonna come every day he should just get a library card and take books home. That was a game changer.

Even still, he’d come to the library most days. He wasn’t keen on answering the questions he knew his Mother would have if he brought home piles upon piles of muggle books. The kind librarian asked no questions, was helpful and all smiles. During the Christmas with bad storms in which their heating system broke, she brought Draco countless cups of tea to keep him warm. 

He felt like he could trust her, so three months after they struck up their unusual friendship, he asked her, “Say, if I was an alien, (and he’d hoped he got that right), and I’d come to earth in disguise to learn as much as possible about human history, society, life in general - what books would you say I should start with?”

And thus did Draco Malfoy’s adventure in the muggle world start.

Within a year and a half he had read everything he could get his hands on: he was excellent at world and British history, he was fantastic at maths and science of all kinds and was slowly falling in love with muggle literature. He’d learnt about technology, and music, and television. He loved the cinema, he loved the stories muggles came up with, he loved their obsession with the unknown and their communal lack of self preservation. He loved animated movies the most. 

A few years later, he’d met Phillip.

Phillip was a walking wet dream wrapped in big wooly jumpers. Phillip taught him everything he couldn’t learn from the books - he’d taken him to a supermarket for the first time ever, and to a muggle pub. Philip took him shopping for more “fashionable clothes” and took him to the record store where he worked.

The first time Draco saw a picture of Elton John he’d almost swallowed his own tongue. “Is he- is he a wizard?” 

Phillip had chuckled. “Oh, Draco, you’re so cute.” He’d said. And so started Draco’s obsession with his vinyl collection and Elton John.

Phillip never asked any questions, just took Draco for what he was: lost and unusual and unsure about the world. He was truly dreamy - tall, dark and handsome, happy to guide Draco through the struggles of muggle life and happy to let Draco boss him around in the bedroom. It was a good deal, if Draco didn’t have to pretend he’d grown up as a religious cult nutter.

They’d dated for about three years, and when Astoria got ill, things simply stopped working. Draco was devastated but he’d known it was doomed from the start. Either way, he had bigger things to worry about then. Phillip could never understand.

Satisfied from way too much food and confessions about their past, they said their goodbyes to the Chowdhrys (with promises to come back soon), walked out into the cold November air and apparated back to London. 

They’d walked around for a good 20 minutes, huddled together for heat but not quite brave enough to touch, when they reached The White Swan, already locked up for the night. He hadn’t realised how late it was.

Potter had that look about him again like he did when they were younger, as if he was about to jump on his broom and balance on it 30 meters up in the air just to catch a snitch. They cross the road and stop in front of the main door of Draco’s building.

“I've wanted to kiss you all night,” Potter whispers into the air. He’s not quite looking at Draco, but Draco is looking straight at him.

Before he convinces himself not to, he uses a couple of fingers to tilt Harry’s chin upwards so their eyes meet. He waits, the question unspoken between them - but Potter gets it. Draco knows he does because he gets the tiniest nod of consent back. And then his lips are touching Harry Potter’s lips, softly but hungrily. Their kiss takes just long enough for both of them to know they would happily do it forevermore, but it’s short enough to leave them both wanting.

“I have wanted to do that for a lot longer than all night,” he hears himself confess. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to assume every bloody dish in that meal is paneer based because I am massively lactose intolerant and practically vegan these days and I MISS PANEER okay


	4. Bat-Bogey Hexes and Other Painful Charms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay no spoilers but we might be going into explicit territory here so brace thyselves!! Grab a glass of wine, light some candles. It really isn’t the smuttiest smut but it’s still smutty so, idk, maybe read it on your phone at 3am?
> 
> Warnings for this one: divorce, alcohol consumption and sex.

Four weeks after their first date, Draco finds that Harry Potter is now a major part of his life. He’d spilt the truth about his PhD on their fifth date, after a two hour long Seeker’s Game and a _very_ thorough snogging session. Harry’s reaction was a delight. A loud gasp, followed immediately by: _“You’re the first wizard in the world to do this and you’re keeping it a secret!? We have to tell everyone!”_ Mouth agape and eyes shining bright and then, _“Oh. Oh my god. ‘Mione will be so jealous.”_

Just for the Granger comment, he decides he’s happy Potter was the first one to know his secret. Hopefully, in just a few months he’d graduate with flying colours and could finally tell the world he was the first wizard to hold a PhD in a subject that mixed both magical and Muggle knowledge: Transfiguration and Quantum Mechanics. But for now, it was a secret between himself, The Boy Who Lived and a handful of people at Merlin’s College at the University of Cambridge.

Draco was happier than he had been in a really long time. Sometimes the word “forever” popped into his head but he didn’t like going there much. They spend their time at Harry’s a lot, these days. Draco’s flat is often more convenient for both but Harry’s penthouse is much bigger and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little bit in love with the enormous kitchen and its giant windows and marble countertops. 

Harry is going through a drawer in the hallway, rifling through bits of parchment like a mad man when Draco arrives and drops his pile of research on the console. Harry pulls Draco close by the waist as soon as his books and bits of parchment hit the wood surface and pouts upwards for a kiss. Everything Harry does, he does _with passion._ It’s not new, Harry Potter has always been like that - all in or all out, no middle ground. But it’s getting increasingly hard not to push him against the wall and have his wicked way with him. Every time Harry and Draco had found each other in a similarly passionate situation, one of them has found a reason or an excuse to stop it before it got too heated. Draco can’t explain why he feels like he has to walk on eggshells around Harry. He especially can’t explain why he feels this way but thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to go home after and have a luxuriously long wank featuring fantasy-Harry in the most perverse scenarios.

Pansy, of course, has a theory about it. They’d gone for brunch on the Sunday the week before and Draco had confessed to being a little confused about the person he was currently dating and their lack of _progression_ , so to speak. _“So you’ve been seeing someone for weeks and you haven’t shagged?”_ she’d said, tapping her long red nails on the wooden table. _“Losing your touch, Drakey?”_ And that was exactly what he was worried about, that he’d wanted this for so long that he just _couldn’t do it_. He couldn’t care less about his playboy routine and the reputation he’d built in certain circles and clubs, but he still very much wanted Harry Potter to suffer at his hands in the most delicious ways.

_“So, is this guy really into you? Like, do you care for each other?”_ Pansy had asked, in a way that makes him immediately know she's psycho-analysing him, the way she’s done since they were 11. “I- I think we do, yeah.” After a good hour of bottomless Buck's Fizz, enough smoked salmon and cream cheese english muffins to feed half a platoon and maybe a cigarette or two, Pansy gives him the verdict: he’s probably heavily infatuated, they both probably want to jump each other’s bones desperately but are worried they won’t be compatible and are probably waiting for the other to initiate… which, he has to admit, is probably not an entirely wrong reading of the situation. Either way, the situation gets more and more dire each day.

Harry doesn’t do small talk - it’s, perhaps, part of the all in or all out thing. He doesn’t care for it. When he asks you how you are, he’s not just being polite, he actually wants to know. So sometimes he asks random questions as a way of greeting, or just starts telling Draco a story about what happened at work that day. Harry Potter says what he wants to say.

Tonight’s opening line, straight after the kiss, is: “Can we just order in tonight, darling?”

And there’s _that_ , too. _Darling._ He’d become Draco instead of Malfoy by their third date, a short coffee stop before Potter had to rush to help with a three year old displaying accidental magic somewhere up in Yorkshire, where they had worked through a quick “let me update you on what’s happened in my life since the year 2000.” But he doesn’t remain Draco for long - even though it’s been his name for over forty years, it doesn’t stick. By the time Draco gets to see Harry’s bachelor flat for the first time, he’d become Darling. 

He’d discovered that Harry was a pet name type of person when they were sat together after dinner watching telly and Harry casually picked up his ringing phone and said “hi, babe” and left the room, leaving Draco to pretend he was still watching the movie while his piss was absolutely boiling with jealousy. 

To his own mortification and Harry’s amusement, Draco later realised that, on the phone, was none other than Ronald Weasley. Ginevra was still “honey” ( _“It’s weird to stop after all these years, you know?”_ , Harry had said), Granger was “boo” (“ _just don’t ask_ ”). Apparently Teddy, at age 22, was still “teddy bear”, James was “jelly bean”, Albus was “puddin’” (“ _he was a really chubby baby!_ ”) and Lily was “sweetheart”. Even Scorpius, apparently, had a nickname: the moment he heard it, Draco vowed on the spot that he would never, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever call his child “poppet”.

Pet name or not, ordering in is always fine with Draco on days he’s been sat down writing notes and reading all day. So they order Chinese and Draco sits on Harry’s enormous kitchen table drinking a beer while Harry goes about and does house jobs like they’ve been together forever. The domesticity of it all kills Draco little by little and he thinks maybe tonight is a good time to ask “So, are we like dating or what?” Or maybe even “Is this an exclusive type thing or are we seeing other people?” Perhaps he’d dare throw a “how do you feel about sex?” in too because they’re both 40 and the whole seeing each other every day thing is getting a little weird. However, he’s Draco Malfoy and confrontation isn’t really his thing.

When the doorbell rings, Harry is up on top of a ladder changing a bulb - the kind of thing he insists on doing the muggle way - it baffles Draco a little bit but he usually doesn’t complain. There’s always some degree of enjoyment to Potter’s “doing things by hand” method. In this specific case, it means that Draco gets to sit back, drink his beer and get a good look at Harry’s strong calves, his round arse and the delicious sliver of brown skin peeking out from in between his t-shirt and jeans.

“That’ll be the food. Do you mind getting it?”

Draco gets up and walks down the corridor but says “It’s not polite to get your guests to do things for you, Potter. Answering the door, of all things!!” anyway. He doesn’t really mean it but Potter knows enough of his weaknesses already, so he has to at least keep his dickish behaviour going.

“I’m sure you’ll be forgiven for the horrid etiquette sin.” Harry shouts from the kitchen. Just as Draco opens the door, he adds: “What’s the worst that can happen?”

He’s not sure whose gasp is louder. What _is_ the worst that can happen?

_Well,_ Draco thinks, _Voldemort resurrecting, my father breaking out of Azkaban, something happening to the kids…_

“Perhaps your ex-wife on your doorstep looking absolutely murderous?”

“Haha, very funny, Draco. Just shut up and bring the food and your sweet bum back over here.”

Ginny Weasley raises an eyebrow at him and lifts her finger up to her lips in a shushing motion. She walks past him and strides into the kitchen confidently. 

“Hi, honey.”

The clatter is all Draco needs to hear to know Harry has fallen off the bloody ladder.

Draco _fucking_ _loves_ Ginevra. Even if sometimes a dark look crosses her face or she makes a certain expression that makes him think of bat-bogey hexes and other painful charms. But he fucking loves her. He would find it weird to admit it, but he does. He often wonders how different his life would have been if Scorpius and Albus didn’t meet on the Hogwarts Express. Even if Ginny was training or away for a game, he knew that if Astoria had to go into hospital and his Mother was away, he could Floo over and Scorpius would be in safe hands, if not at the Potters then at the Granger-Weasleys or even at the Weasleys. He didn’t bat an eyelid sometime around the Christmas holidays during Scorpius’ second year, when his son came home raving about “Nana Molly’s” food that was the most delicious he’d ever tasted and _“she even makes it all herself, no house elves!”_ Ginny and Draco are not _friends, per se._ They do each other favours when it comes to the kids, they make plans together because they know their children are each other’s only friends, and they even buy each other drinks if they bump into each other at _certain parties_. But they’re not _friends_ , exactly.

_Ginny and Draco are not friends,_ he muses, _in exactly the same way that Harry and Draco are not… partners? Boyfriends? God._

If the idea of one Draco Malfoy dating the Saviour of the World was inconceivable, then the aforementioned two sitting at a table eating Chinese takeaway and sharing beers across from Ginny Weasley-once-Potter-formerly-Weasley-again was downright ludicrous. And, despite all that, here they were. Harry had done a fair amount of stuttering, Draco a fair amount of blushing and trying to explain to the delivery guy that “everyone’s fine, they’re just noisy” when it was finally the food at the door instead of a surprise Weasley. Ginny had almost laughed herself sick, and mumbled something about wondering if a bet she had with George was still valid after over 10 years.

She sits at the table like she was invited, steals a third of Draco’s sweet and sour tofu, half of the egg fried rice and a triangle of prawn toast and then asks: “So, you’re fucking my ex, Malfoy?” and the effort he has to go through in order not to spit a mouthful of spring roll out is honestly painful.

He’s annoyed on so many fronts that tonight has gone completely tits up that he starts listing every country in the world in alphabetical order, backwards, in his head just so he doesn’t throw a temper tantrum. 

The dynamic between the formerly married couple is akin to his and Astoria’s, which makes him feel more at peace than he ever thought he would. It’s obvious to anyone who watches Harry and Ginny that they love each other and know each other better than they probably know themselves. They are, just like Draco himself, two adults whose growing up was plagued by war and who grew up around each other. It’s also painfully obvious they have raised three (four, counting Teddy) children together. They have their silent communication down to a T and Ginny gives Potter a dirty look even before he finishes his dad jokes, like she knows what he’s about to say.

The familiar ache in his chest makes itself felt: he’d do anything if it meant having Astoria back. He wonders what it would be like to sit at this table with Astoria and Ginevra, with Harry smiling and looking at him like he is the most important thing that has ever walked this earth. 

And that really is how Harry looks at him. It was how Harry looked at him when he poured him wine that first night in his own tiny kitchen, it was how Harry looked at him when he talked about his post-war discoveries back in Sheffield, it was how he looked at him when he let Draco catch the snitch, it was how he looked at him at the cafe as he spoke about Astoria and Phillip. It was how Harry looked at Draco, with a fondness, almost an adoration, his green eyes sparkling and the corners of his mouth curling slightly upwards. Draco could say with certainty that, in his 40 years of being alive, no one had ever looked at him like that.

Halfway through dinner, awkwardness eased through beer and food and an odd feeling of camaraderie, Harry and Ginny enter into what could only be described as a competition to figure out which of them is the least subtle. 

Harry is probably only winning because he is actually touching Draco. A hand lingers on his lower back as Harry leans in to grab the tub with the pork buns (Ginny, on the other hand, will not stop making bun based innuendos and Draco is about ready to die), his leg is pressed firmly against Draco’s under the table; he uses his thumb to catch a droplet of sauce on Draco’s lip before he has any chance to even grab for his napkin and when Ginny stands up to get everyone another beer from the cold cupboard, Harry’s left hand snakes over his thigh, warm and heavy, the pinky just about grazing his half awakened erection and squeezes _hard_.

“What are you doing?” He mouths at Harry after making sure Ginny is still facing the other way. Just as he expected, all he gets is a big dopey smile and another squeeze to his inner thigh as a response.

He is going to spontaneously combust if all that has taken Harry to show any interest in having sex with him whatsoever is Ginevra Weasley (“ _his ex wife!!_ ” kindly supplies his evil brain) making inappropriate jokes about the two of them over dinner.

The redhead returns and places the three bottles on the table gently, popping them open with quick flicks of her wand, then gives Draco a toothy grin, lifts her bottle halfway to her lips and says, “Cheers, Harry! Malfoy is my favourite boyfriend you’ve ever had. Keep him, will you?” 

Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. 

Harry shakes his head but laughs, heartily. And then he takes his hand off Draco’s leg and wraps it around Draco's hand on top of the table, mumbling a “Yeah, may have to.” The sound Draco makes is not human.

_Boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend._ His heart is flying up into the air in a speed no broom can match and then it does seven loop-the-loops without a break in between them, corkscrews high into the clouds and follows that with a Wronski Feint that could probably rival Harry Potter’s. Hell, it could take Victor Krum’s and bodyslam it. 

The word boyfriend swimming in his brain and Harry’s hand stil in his and him desperately trying not to think about how he’s not had a sexual partner he was romantically invested in in over 8 years, and he realises Pansy was right. He knows what a boner means, what to do with it, but he’s not quite sure what to do with his dick now he knows his heart is in it just as deep. _Fucking hell._

Potter squeezes his hand and Ginny Weasley looks at them with that cat-that-got-the-cream expression and he loves her but very, very badly wants her to leave right now.

As if reading his mind, Ginny slams her beer down on the table and says “Well, boys, this was a pleasant surprise, but I should probably get going soon. Firstly because I’m not even meant to be drinking and secondly, because, as I’m often reminded, I’m not the youngest Harpy anymore and I have training at 6 in the morning.” She stands up, runs a hand through her long ginger hair. “I just need the loo and then you’ll be alone again.” She gives them an overdramatic wink and exits the kitchen, her trainers squeaking softly down the corridor.

As soon as he hears the lock on the bathroom door click, he allows himself one long shaky breath before he even dares look at Harry, whose leg is still touching his.

The couple of seconds it takes him to find himself are enough for Potter to get whatever his nefarious plan is in motion, because he’s twisting his body on his chair, his legs now facing Draco’s chair and Draco’s neck is being assaulted with open mouthed kisses. Harry’s hand is back on his thigh, squeezing, stroking and driving him crazy.

“Potter.” It comes out as a whisper, the exact opposite of what he wants. “Potter,” he says again, but this time it works. His voice is firm, slightly rough compared with his first whisper. Harry’s hand stops and his eyes widen. He hesitates for a second. _“Harry isn’t like the men you meet at parties.”_ No. He isn’t. Which is why he can’t fuck this up. He knows nothing about what Harry likes, what he wants, what he can take and it really doesn’t look like they’re getting a conversation in before Harry climbs him like a tree, so, as much as Draco wants to say “Potter, stop that right now or I’ll put you over my knee”, they’re gonna do this the old fashioned way. Lord knows they’ve been dancing around each other for long enough. 

Harry is now wearing the most sinful pout and Draco’s honestly convinced the universe wants him dead before his cock even touches Harry Potter. He can’t have that. He reaches up and tucks a loose curl behind Harry’s ear, slowly - a calculated move. He needs Harry _wanting_. His lips trace Harry’s jaw upwards, and when he finally gets to his ear, he whispers: “You can have whatever you want, once Ginevra’s gone. Until then, behave.”

The next few minutes go painfully slow. He knows it doesn’t take longer than fifteen minutes. In all fairness, it’s probably closer to ten. But god, _he wants._ Ginny knows exactly what happened in that kitchen while she was gone, too. Or at least she has a vague idea that can’t be that far from the truth, judging by her little smile when she walks back in, going straight for her beer. Harry is sitting unnaturally straight, both hands wrapped around his beer bottle, picking at the label anxiously. Much to his dismay (he wasn’t raised by wolves, thank you very much), Ginevra insists she’ll walk herself out. It leaves them both waiting, anxiously, wanting. He can feel Harry’s eyes on him but he doesn’t dare even look. He stares at the floor, makes a small list of things he can see while Ginny gathers her coat and they _wait: Harry’s shoes, Draco’s bag, the tiered plant stand with all the herbs he’d brought Harry from his own flat, the hippogriff shaped doorstop, th-_ the door closes. The door closes and they’re alone.

Harry flicks his hand at the table in one quick motion in one of his casual displays of magic a normal wizard shouldn’t be able to do (and that Draco is trying and failing miserably to get used to) sending everything on top of the table where it should go. Tubs with leftovers pile on the countertop next to the fridge, dirty plates and cutlery set themselves in the sink, the empty beer bottles fly gracefully into the recycling basket without a sound.

He has no time to be as impressed as one should be because, as soon as the table is empty, Harry turns to sit on it and shuffles a little until he’s sat right in front of Draco, raising his knees a little until his socked feet are comfortably set on Draco’s thighs. Then, because he is the most infuriatingly adorable creature in the entire world, he just smiles broadly down at Draco and says “hiya.”

“Hello, Potter,” he says, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say. This situation isn’t in any of his guides or lists of things to say and actions to take. Harry chuckles at that and pulls at Draco’s collar a little and lets his feet slide down until he has him where he wants him, which is apparently standing up between his open legs. Draco can’t complain. It starts out with kissing and tentative, gentle touching, but it’s not long until Harry is standing too, popping buttons open and shoving items of clothing out of the way.

“Bed?” he asks against Harry’s mouth, because there’s no way they’re doing this half undressed on the kitchen table. Maybe at a later time. Harry nods and, just like that, they land surprisingly smoothly on the soft carpet in Harry’s bedroom. Harry is topless and his trousers are halfway down his legs now, Draco’s just hanging on his hips, buttons open at the front, his prick straining against the fabric of his boxers. 

He grabs a fistful of Harry’s long locks and pulls, gently at first, exposing Harry’s neck. That drags a soft moan out of the brunette so he pulls again, harder this time, licking at the pulse point on Harry’s neck as he does.

All worries about being out of practice are gone as soon as Harry kicks off his own trousers and starts opening Draco’s shirt. All worries about what this means, how different it is from sex in clubs where he’s only wanted for his reputation, for _the thrill_ \- gone.

_“God, Draco.”_ And really, that’s what unravels him. His name. He’s not had a partner say his name in bed _in years._

He helps Harry’s fumbling hands, getting rid of his shirt first, trousers and pants coming off swiftly right after. He’s barely touched Harry and he is melting before his eyes, kissing whatever body part of Draco’s he can find: mouth, neck, hair, ears, shoulder, the sensitive little bit where his collarbone and shoulder meet, the crook of his elbow, his wrist and, fuck, he starts licking at Draco’s wrist, slowly going up his palm and before he can do anything, his index and middle fingers are being swallowed by Harry’s hot, wet mouth.

He’s not sure what it is when he’s around Harry fucking Potter that defies the rules of how time works, but it’s always either too fast or too slow. This specific instance doesn’t make one bit of sense considering time seems to be trickling droplets of water down a not-closed-quite-tightly-enough tap slow, but their movements are frantic, quick, desperate. He thinks time actually _stops_ when he finally gets his hand into Harry’s boxers. 

He is in awe of how responsive Harry is. He’s quite proud of the fact that he manages to say “Wait, wait. Harry, _fuck_ , get on the bed” just before his control vanishes completely, which is to say just after Harry’s pants are _finally_ off and their cocks _touch._

A little nugget of worry comes back just as he straddles Harry on the bed, whose hips are thrusting upwards to meet his, the resulting delicious friction helping the worry settle. There’s a little battle there, for a few seconds. _We really should have discussed this. Then, oh fuck, that feels good. And then,_ “Draco, stop. ‘m not gonna last. Wanna come with you inside me.”

Oh. _Oh_. Salazar and Godric. Merlin and Circe. Gaia, mother of all things. Rowena and Helga. _Jesus, even_. Draco responds with an open mouthed kiss, which is really more the two of them panting into each other’s mouths rather than a kiss, but he’s trying not to let his brain analyse things that deeply. He says a silent prayer in his head to whatever deity will listen that Harry will want to do this again at some point, because he’s not gonna last either and he hasn’t had the time to appreciate every inch of Harry’s body as much as he’d like to.

They slow down then, and time slows further with them. Neck kisses, nails scratching sides and backs, hands finding biceps and thighs and grabbing just that little bit too hard, lube covered hands stroking and probing and stretching, muffled groans and languid moans and “yes, yes” and “okay, I think I’m ready, let me ride you”.

It’s his cock in Harry’s arse and yet he feels like he’s the one getting thoroughly fucked. Harry is riding him in slow, forceful motions and he’s so thankful that his brain is actually quiet for this. Harry Potter is gorgeous. He has a small, round tummy he hides well when he’s got his clothes on and Draco _loves_ it. Harry is toned in a dad way, in a "sometimes I play quidditch on the weekend" way, in a "I don’t have an office job" way. Harry looks like a god, he thinks. His long hair, kinked and knotted from his haphazardly ripped off bobble, his chest hairy and scarred and fuck, _he needs to kiss him._

He props himself on his elbows and pulls Harry down by the back of his neck and that changes the angle ever so slightly. Harry stills and looks completely out of it when he goes “oh, shit”. Draco knows that look. He kisses Harry deep and keeps moving in sharp, short thrusts. He reaches for Harry’s cock between them, a slightly awkward angle for his hand but Harry says “no”, and holy fuck, if that isn’t the hottest thing ever. “Just keep going.” 

He can tell Harry’s close so he pulls all the best tricks out of his magician’s hat: he laps at Harry’s pulse point just under his ear, he pulls his hair again ever so slightly (and he’s not sure if that’s for Harry or for him, but who cares at this point) and he looks Harry in the eye and says “you feel so fucking good, babe,” and Harry comes, just like that, mouth wide open but without a sound, eyes shut tightly. And if that wasn’t just about enough to kill Draco on the spot, Harry hops off his lap with a small wince and frantically lies down, pulling Draco’s body over his and says, “come on me, come on, come on, _come on_.” And really, who is he to disagree with such a request?

They lie in bed, side by side, limbs all over, and Draco tries to think very, very hard about how he’s just had sex with Harry Potter. He tries to convince himself that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything but he can’t even fool himself. Harry casts a welcome Scourgify once they’ve regained their breath, snuggles in close and says, “You called me babe.”

“Wel, you called me boyfriend.”

Harry snaps his head up and looks at him and says very quickly “I know, we don’t have to, I mean- er, I wanted to ask before. I’m sorry. Also, I know some people don’t like the word... we can be partners? I dunno? Companions. Draco, we don’t have to be anyth-”

“Hey.” He says, then kisses the top of Harry’s head. “Relax. Boyfriend is fine.”

It’s very, very fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can we get an Hallelujah for Ginevra Molly Weasley doing God’s work!? We stan a supportive ex-wife.  
> Also, no Potters were harmed in this chapter. Falling off a ladder can cause serious injuries but they’re wizards and it was nothing an Episkey can’t solve!


	5. The Freak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick short one today :) Very quick mention of past trauma on this one. Also, get ready to meet my favourite character. He’s super cute and I love him to bits. Happy Friday the 13th!!

Harry Potter sleeps with too many pillows. Harry Potter drinks tea for the flavour but thinks it has too little caffeine so he drinks a shot of strong espresso on the side with his breakfast. Harry Potter is extremely peculiar about his food, from main meals to snacks, from the preparation process to sitting down to eat. Harry Potter is curious like a three year old: he asks Draco physics questions he doesn’t truly understand the answers for, he asks Draco transfiguration questions he pretends to understand because apparently he likes to hear Draco talk about it and he repeatedly asks Draco if he can see his Animagus form (he can’t until Draco has graduated because Draco made a promise to himself and breaking it now would probably bring bad luck). Harry Potter is interested in anything and everything - he wants to know about the scar on the soft bit on the back of Draco’s knee (peacock nip when he was 5), he wants to know about Draco’s bedtime skincare routine ( _“Okay, I got it, first you wash with the weird smelling soap, then you… do something with the pink-y water, then the white lotion thing and then the black syrup-like stuff?” “Yes, Potter, congratulations.”)_ , he wants to know where Draco has learnt how to do things from the most basic everyday tasks ( _“Don’t be mad, but I keep thinking about you using a microwave for the first time.”_ ) to the more… unusual things he can do with his tongue ( _“How do you even- aaaah, fuck, darling, please, please, don’t stop.”_ ). 

Harry is forty years old and flies like he did when he was fifteen, except he complains about how much his back hurts for the following 24 hours and uses it as an excuse to be a complete pillow princess. Harry writes his children every week, even though James only writes back once a month, Albus every two weeks and Lily sometimes every two or three days - he tried to align his letter writing session with Draco’s and all his three children freaked out because their letters were three days late. Harry has lunch with Teddy every two weeks. Harry enjoys being the little spoon but mostly enjoys acting like a limpet in bed or on the sofa or, on days he is really truly tired from work, even standing up. 

Draco Malfoy continues to pretend his life is unchanged - and it is, mostly. He wakes up, he has breakfast, he showers, he does uni work, he reads a book, he goes to Cambridge, he does research, he goes to the pub at least three times a week, he has tea with Mother on Sundays, he writes Scorpius on Mondays, he has brunch with Pansy once every two weekends, he goes for drinks with Blaise (sometimes with an additional Theo, even less often with an additional Greg) once every three and he has dinner with Teddy once a month. 

It’s just that now he has company when he wakes up, and when he has breakfast, and sometimes when he showers. He watches Pointless while he makes dinner, except sometimes Harry makes dinner, or they order in, and they both watch Pointless and try to see who’d get the better answer (it’s always Draco). 

Draco makes lists in his head of all the little things he has learnt about Harry Potter on a daily basis. Every day he finds a new thing about Harry and he carefully catalogues this in his many little boxes in his head. He loves the big things, of course he does - his heart breaks whenever Harry talks about Sirius, or Remus, or even Teddy. Every time he mentions his childhood, which he only does vaguely and in passing, but enough for Draco to understand Potter’s unwavering attachment to Ronald Weasley from day one. This is reassuring, in a way, too: Draco finally knows what he did wrong on the train, all those years ago. He loves when Harry tells him things he knows only the Weasleys, Longbottom and Lovegood would know. But most of all, he loves the little things. The things that perhaps not even Ginevra knows - the things that are just for Draco, maybe because of their history, maybe because of a distinct lack of expectations (and really, who expected _this_?), maybe because Draco himself is letting go more than he ever did with Astoria and Harry is seeing him for who he is. And he hopes that, maybe, Harry is letting him see who Harry is too.

He wonders if Harry does it too. Is Harry organising everything Draco does alphabetically and by feeling inside his own little brain boxes? He wonders if Harry thinks “Draco is obsessed with my hair” the way he thinks “Harry is obsessed with my hands”, if Harry thinks the way Draco makes his coffee ritualistically exactly the same way every morning is endearing just like he thinks the way Harry cooks without a recipe and somehow still gets it perfectly timed and delicious is endearing.

They don’t know everything about each other, yet, but there is comfort in that, in a way. In knowing they still have so much to discover. 

Like how an argument between the two would pan out.

You could say Draco Malfoy was, most times, as soft as a kitten. And yes, he had a genetically inherited terrifying glare but, especially when you consider the whole Death Eater reputation, Draco was as soft and as scary as a tiny little kitten.

Draco was at his most dangerous when he felt vulnerable or weak. Which is to say, he was at his most dangerous when he got defensive. He’d had pretty much 7 years of experience at arguing with Harry Potter but he could have never guessed that their first real fight as a couple would be about something completely mundane and inconsequential.

It was one of those things he couldn’t shake, one of the things that had been drilled into his tiny blonde head as a child. It didn’t matter that he logically understood that it wasn’t an issue. It made his blood boil, the feeling that he wasn’t good or strong or talented enough. It happened when he had to carry heavy things the muggle way because the neighbours were around, it happened when he had to perform “manly” tasks like putting shelves up or changing a tire. 

It had happened before around muggle boyfriends or friends, but never to this degree. It was somehow always worse around magic, as if he’d been called into his Father’s office for punishment and was about to get hexed senseless.

And it happens, one day, a few weeks still before the kids came home from Christmas, when he stubbornly tries to help Harry with some jobs around the house that couldn’t be done with magic.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks for the fifth time. Draco knows his face is beet red in both embarrassment and effort, but he manages to bite out a “Fine.” as a response. By the seventh time Harry asks, he considers hexing him. By the twelfth, he grinds his teeth so hard they hurt but doesn't reply. The sixteenth time comes with Harry abandoning what he was doing and walking across the room, sweat soaked rag in hand. A tiny part of Draco’s brain takes a look at him, old raggedy jeans sitting low on his hips, the very top of the triangle of Harry’s Deathly Hallows tattoo he knows so well just peeking out on his right hip, and thinks if he wasn’t so furious he could, perhaps, appreciate how hot The Chosen One looks. But the anger overrides everything.

“Will you get back to your fucking task and let me be?”

Harry’s face falls. He turns around and exits the room mumbling what sounds very much like a “sure thing, Malfoy, makes sense that somehow trying to help you makes me the bad guy”.

He immediately knows he’s fucked up, so, tail between his legs, he follows Harry into the kitchen, takes a big breath and confesses, voice still laced with the anger that masked his fragility: “I just really hate feeling weak, like I can’t do perfectly normal things, so I get defensive. I’m sorry if I snapped at you but surely you understand that if you keep asking if I need help after I say I am fine several times, you’re really telling me that you have no faith in me and you don’t believe me when I say I’m fine.”

Harry turns around, still holding his rag, with an exasperated look on his face. “You said you were fine but you were visibly struggling. I was just trying to help!”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. 

“I’ll ask for help if I need it! Fuck, this is what I’m trying to tell you. Don’t fucking undermine me, I’m not a baby and I don’t need coddling!”

“Well, you-“

“I WHAT!?” He can feel sweat dripping down his brow now.

“You’re being a baby right now.”

There is a lot of shouting. He doesn’t remember ever arguing like that with anyone. He doesn’t remember arguing like that with Harry before, in school. No hexes, no insults, no threats. Just a hell of a screaming match. Draco isn’t sure how long they shout at each other for. A minute? Ten? An hour? He knows that when he’s had enough he rasps out a “Fuck you, Potter. I’m going home.” and disapparates. 

He doesn’t really come home much these days, except to do uni work while Harry is busy. They do everything else together. And considering he’s in no mood to do uni work at all, being at home doesn’t make him feel particularly better.

He’s having a cup of tea and considering texting Harry when he hears the crack of apparition from the entrance hall.

“It’s rude to Apparate in people’s houses unexpectedly. You could at least have shown the decency to apparate in the hallway and knock.”

Harry appears in the doorway, not coming into the room, looking at Draco like he’s scared of him. He’s changed into more presentable clothes and showered, judging by the still wet hair flowing down his back.

“Will you come with me?" he asks softly.

“Piss off.”

“Come on. I have something to show you,” he insists, _of course he does_. It’s not like Draco thinks he’s gonna get the upper hand at any point.

“It’s raining.”

But there’s no winning. They apparate across from a big police station and Harry Potter strolls into the place like he owns it. He’s not even a celebrity here - or a hero, yet still, he walks as if he is. He greets people as they go, Draco following behind him like a toddler follows a parent around a supermarket. 

“Officer Potter! Here to see the freak?” asks the short lady at the desk.

 _The freak?_

“I am, yes, Melinda. But it’ll be the last time today, I’m afraid.”

The woman laughs. 

“Yeah, _right_. You’ve been here every day for 3 weeks now.” She tosses him a set of keys that he grabs midair with what’s left over of his school day's Seeker skills.

“The difference is, I’m taking him home.” Harry says, giving the woman a big toothy grin.

“You’re taking _the freak_ home?” She sounds shocked and Draco is getting increasingly worried about whatever _The Freak_ is.

“Yep,” he says, the big smile still on his face. Draco couldn’t be more confused. “I’ll be a sec, darling,” Harry says to him. Draco is rooted to the spot. Being called darling in public, following Potter to work after they’ve had an argument, not being introduced to people, the whole “freak" thing. It’s all a bit much.

While he’s having his crisis, Potter walks into a little room to their left using the keys Melinda had thrown at him.

When Harry comes out of the room, he deposits a teeny blanket-wrapped puppy in Draco’s arms and mouths “I’m sorry.”

Draco doesn’t say anything. In fact, Draco doesn’t say anything while Harry chats with Melinda, Draco doesn’t say anything as they go up to a different floor and sign some papers, and he doesn’t say anything as they leave the building and Harry tells him how he suspects the puppy is a half crup and they were called after the puppy exhibited several instances of accidental magic. The breeders didn’t know what to do with him. It was too small to be separated from his mother, at only 6 weeks, but they couldn’t keep him with the muggles so they’d been bottle feeding him. He had been affectionately named “The Freak” by the muggles, which infuriated Harry for some reason, so he decided he’d bring him home. After all, the house was too quiet with the kids gone. 

Harry doesn’t want to Apparate with the puppy, so they stop at a bakery for pastries and coffee. It doesn’t take long for the rain to stop and they walk the rest of the way home. Harry doesn’t attempt to give him his drink or pastry, letting him snuggle the puppy against his chest silently. He apologises again, “for real”, he says. “That was mean and I know you were honest about how you felt and how you feel is valid and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I think it’s the whole saviour complex thing.” He almost chuckles when Harry does, but he keeps quiet. 

It’s only when they reach Harry’s front door that Draco says: “You won’t be able to get out of every argument with a puppy, Potter.”

He walks straight into the sitting room and unceremoniously slumps onto the sofa. The puppy’s eyes open to look at him and he melts. Harry is forgiven. He tells himself that later, when they’re in bed, he’ll apologise too. For now, it doesn’t hurt to keep Potter grovelling for a little longer. He’s got a puppy to snuggle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boys being dumb and cute and kissing and making up is 👌🏻 but dogs? dogs are 👌🏻 👌🏻 👌🏻 (me? writing a semi-magical version of my own pup into my fic? nah, don't be silly)


	6. Just Like In Sixth Year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was meant to update yesterday but totally forgot after reading such an intense fic that I unable to function for the rest of the day... I am sure this is a somewhat relatable situation for some people. Sooooo, here's a little treat: DOUBLE UPDATE!! 
> 
> This chapter was super fun to write so there’s only some alcohol consumption in this one aaaaand a sprinkle of anxiety. Otherwise, squeaky clean and happy as a clam.

He has been expecting it for a while, but it still comes as a bit of a shock when Harry finally broaches the subject. Draco is making tea when Harry comes into the kitchen. Harry doesn’t say much in the mornings and Draco likes that. Most days they don’t speak a word between getting out of bed and having their first coffee. Draco spends most nights at Harry’s and when he doesn’t, Harry comes over for breakfast. It’s a quiet affair, peaceful. 

“I want to tell my friends about us. You know. If we’re telling the kids,” is the first thing Potter says to him that morning.

They’d decided they’re telling the children on New Year’s Eve. They’re not ready to ruin Christmas in case it’s not taken well, and if they do it on New Year’s, at least they only have to see the kids for 3 days after, before they go back to Hogwarts. _“Merlin, Potter, you’re as much of a coward as I am, who would have known?”_ he had said, which had made Harry laugh so hard he’d almost fallen off the bed. 

It’s not like he can say no, so Draco stirs sugar into his tea and says “Okay.”

“Okay? Is that all you have to say?”

“Mhmm.” He nods as he hums.

Harry walks around the table with short but confident steps. He grabs the teacup from Draco’s hand and places it on the counter behind them, all while pressing his whole body against the blonde’s, arms snaking around Draco’s waist and pulling him into him further.

“Draco…” it’s nothing but a whisper but it makes Draco shiver. “I just want everyone to know. I’m not saying let’s take out a page in The Prophet - I just want my friends, _my family_ to know. Then after that we can talk about where to go from there.”

Yet again, Draco finds himself thinking “It’s not like I can say no.”, but it does scare him. It’s one thing that Ginevra knows and that was a complete accident. But Ronald? Granger? Longbottom? His brain starts listing names and somehow the more names he thinks of, the sweatier the palms of his hands get. He doesn’t want to say “okay” again, so he says the first thing he can think of.

“I think I’ll tell Mother after I tell Scorpius. We always have a big brunch on the 1st. Pansy, Blaise, Greg and Theo at some point, too.” When Draco lifts his head from his teacup next, Harry is absolutely beaming and he thinks, maybe, that smile is worth how terrified he feels.

He has been expecting Harry to say he wants to tell his friends since Ginny found out. However, the thing that totally takes him by surprise is that Harry starts making plans for that same night almost immediately.

“I’ll text the DA group chat and see if everyone can do tonight, get it over with.” 

He doesn’t have to do much asking before Harry goes on a long explanation of how “DA” stands for Dickheads Anonymous, an amusing little pun that Potter and his chums love so much because they’re still The DA, but no longer Dumbledore’s Army. 

It had, apparently, started the year James Sirius was born, when the Gryffindors (plus their Ravenclaw appendage in the form of Luna Lovegood) and their respective partners realised they were all adults with lives and very little time to see each other. The DA, apparently, had very specific rules. They’d started it at pubs but there was the press problem. Then they tried Muggle pubs but Ronald Weasley’s inability to keep the volume down combined with Seamus Finnigan’s propensity for stupid magic while inebriated kept them from that too, lest they shatter the Statute of Secrecy once and for all. After that, it became obvious that they probably shouldn’t go out for these meetings so it became “ _something special, a ritual_ ”, Harry says: done once every five weeks where they’d take turns hosting.

 _Extraordinary Assembly_ was only ever called for big announcements and there was a code for those as well: whiskey meant babies were on the way, champagne meant a new job or promotion, gin was for engagements and vodka was for a new house. Harry confesses to Draco that afternoon that he’s not really sure what drink to serve if everyone agrees to meet. Later, before kissing him and wishing him luck before he pushes his boyfriend in the Floo, Draco gets him a couple bottles of very good mead. “Come back to me in one piece. And don’t let anyone come over to kill me!”

He has to stop himself from adding _“I love you”_ and is floored with the realisation. He has always loved the idea of Harry Potter, but _he loves Harry. Well, fuck._

He can’t sit still while Harry is gone. Not after realising he loves him. Not while Harry is having dinner with his friends and telling them “so, yeah, I’m dating Draco Malfoy.” He’s had several conversations with the Granger-Weasleys along the years, but he doesn’t get the feeling they’ll be that happy. He tries not to think about Neville Longbottom, who he used to bully mercilessly but is kind and wonderful enough not to let that influence the way he treats his students (as far as Draco is aware, the Herbology Professor is still Scorpius’ favourite). He tries even harder not to think about Dean Thomas because sometimes he thinks of him and all he sees is red rimmed eyes and a bruised body wrapped in a too thin blanket on the floor of the dungeons.

Thesis work is completely out of the question so he attempts reading. That doesn’t work either so he has an early dinner, but that doesn’t take long enough to keep his mind occupied. He tries the crossword and the sudoku after, but it’s not enough. He pours himself a whisky, puts his sleep playlist on and eventually falls into tumultuous sleep right on Harry’s sofa.

He jolts awake when Harry stumbles out of the floo, quite obviously drunk. He’s got a look on his face that Draco doesn’t recognise but is frankly a little scary.

“Potter, you look positively unhinged.”

Harry laughs, slumps onto the little loveseat in the corner and looks at Draco, expression suddenly going very, very serious. “So, that was the most mortifying evening of my life.”

“WHAT!?” Here we go. _No one likes you, Malfoy. You were shit to all of them, Malfoy. You will be paying for your sins for the rest of your life and you can’t have anything good ever happen to you without it being stolen away, Malfoy._ But Harry says nothing. “Potter, start explaining right this second. The quicker you get it done, the quicker I can pack my toiletries and get out of your hair.”

Harry laughs again. 

“What happened, Potter? Tell me. Now.”

“No need to bring out the Malfoy act, darling. I know you’re a softie, remember?” he says softly as he grabs his jumper and pulls it off in one swift motion. Gods, he is infuriating.

“Don’t panic. Tonight went brilliantly. For you, at least. On my end, however… well, let’s just say it was really, really embarrassing for me.”

He pauses and Draco looks at him and makes a “go on” motion with his hand. All this achieves is that Harry starts taking his shoes off. Then he starts:

“Fuck, Jesus, it’s embarrassing to even tell you. So, basically everyone knew.” Harry is now taking his socks off, opening the top few buttons on his shirt, taking his hair out of his bun and it’s doing things to Draco, who very much wants to focus on the matter at hand. What does he mean everyone _knew_?

“Potter, stop stripping and pay attention.”

“Okay, okay,” he says, waving his hand around. “It went really well, Draco.” Harry must notice Draco’s incredulous eyebrow go up because he immediately follows with “It really did, everyone said you’re invited to the next one, if you’d like. So you don’t have to worry.” 

He’ll believe it when he sees it.

“So. Who knew?” he prods.

“Well, Ginny knew because she actually knew. But we have this thing Hermione made, it’s like a poll box that we all put money in and it’s charmed so we can bet on things without telling each other what or how much we’re betting on, in order not to sway the others or make them question their bet. We’ve had it for years and it’s not been used in ages, I think since Luna and Rolf had the twins? I’d even forgotten about it, actually.”

“So, after dinner, I pour the meads out and I can’t remember exactly what I said anymore but basically “well, as you know I’ve been dating someone for a few weeks and you’ve all been asking about it and we’re telling our children after Christmas so I thought it was time to tell you all… I’m dating Draco Malfoy” and there were no gasps, no giggles, no nothing. Just the box on the table, flopped open and galleon upon galleon floated into Luna’s, Neville’s, Dean’s, Hermione’s and Ron’s hands! They ALL knew. They were so sure they’d put upwards of 100 galleons into the box.”

“How did they know?”

“Well, Luna claimed something to do with our auras? Said she’d seen you recently, a couple of days after I went to hers for dinner and you went out with Pansy and she said she could tell.”

Uh. “That… checks out..”

“Well, the rest is where it gets a little more sinister and where, you could say, it’s kind of my fault but not really.”

“Potter.”

“No, listen, I had the best intentions.”

“Start explaining.”

“So I went to Hogwarts to get you flowers for our first date, remember?” Draco nods. “And you wrote Scorpius and told him exactly what flowers I got you.” Uh-oh. He nods again. 

“Well, Scorp went and asked his Herbology professor if he knew anything about the meaning of flowers and flower language and all that nonsense and proceeds to tell Neville his dad just went on a date with someone and exactly what flowers he got _._ So there’s the first: Neville has known for almost a month now.”

He can’t even really blame Harry for that. Children really are rotten.

“Then, onto Dean. I went to the pub with Dean, Seamus and Ron a couple of weeks back and they were all poking and prodding trying to find out who my mysterious boyfriend is so I decided, ‘well, I’ll give you a random fact about him that you won’t know’ so… I may have told them about your weird tomato-ey, pickled filled, eggy breakfasts you have when we don’t have pastries. I figured, who else would know that about you? And that’s how we all found out tonight that while Dean and Seamus were broken up for a while after the war, Dean had a little fling with Parkinson… who happened to tell him about your weird breakfast preferences."

Draco sighs. He wants to kill both Harry and Pansy, not because of this specific situation but for telling other people about his breakfast habits.

“Hermione knows in a very similar way… because I may have told her about your skincare routine that apparently you shared with her-”

“A couple of years back when she accosted me at the Ministry and said she felt silly but everyone keeps raving about how my skin is porcelain perfect and she wanted to know my secrets.”

Harry chuckles. “Yes, she didn’t phrase it like that, but yeah… basically that.”

He wants to be mad. He really, really does. But it’s kind of sweet, isn’t it? Harry telling one of his closest friends about him, about how he watches him most nights, so much that he’s learnt every step, every product, how he applies it. 

“And I’m guessing Ronald knew because Granger knew?”

“Well, no.” Potter has got the face on again, the one Draco doesn’t really know how to read, and he’s working his way down the buttons on his shirt. Bloody hell.

“Then? What the fuck did you tell him that he knows about me? How can he know anything about me!?”

“I didn’t tell him anything about you, actually.”

“Then, how!?” 

Harry swallows, chuckles to himself and snuggles further into the chair.

“... He just said he knew. He said that the week after our first date I’d come over to theirs to see him and apparently," and he does very dramatic air quotes for this, “I had ‘that look in my eyes just like in sixth year’, which I honestly take offense to, if you ask me.”

Laughter bubbles up in Draco’s chest like heat rising up in a hot air balloon. God. He loves Harry. And maybe Harry doesn’t love him, but he certainly likes him enough to tell his friends. And maybe that will be enough. 

There’s a small part of him that can’t believe this is his life. Something is bound to go terribly wrong very, very soon. But until then, his only worry is putting a drunk, giddy Harry Potter to bed and eventually telling him that the puppy ruined his snitch slippers while Draco made dinner to shoo his fears away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give Ronald Weasley the LOVE and RESPECT he deserves, god damn it.


	7. Something That Isn't Rotten At Its Core

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised second chapter for this double update... is a little less cheery, so proceed with caution.
> 
> Not to expose myself as an emo kid but this chapter is sponsored by my chemical romance’s 2004 and 2007 albums and a hellish two week stay at my mum and dad’s, I am sorry.
> 
> Most scary tags are for this specific chapter so just take care of yourselves. Nothing super explicit but this is very heavy on the grief. 
> 
> It’s all in the past but still, warnings include mentions of: death, grief, violence, snakes, terminal illness, blood, nightmares/night terrors, trauma and ptsd! (Fucking hell, what a gorgeous little cocktail. Wonder if my ma would be proud.)

_Astoria is sitting on the marble counter, legs swinging freely, up and down, up and down again, her pretty chiffon dress fluttering as she does. She’s humming a familiar melody. Chopin, is it? Draco loves her so much. He wishes he could love her more. Differently. Most of all, he wishes this wasn’t happening._

_She pops an olive into her mouth and keeps humming around it. It’s not Chopin, is it? It’s some muggle thing. A soft folk song he’s heard before. He thinks it’s a sad song._

_Sometimes he looks at Astoria and thinks of his Father. It’s not a bad thing. He thinks of how he married Astoria and gave the Malfoy line an heir, as was expected of him. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he let Astoria make room for herself in his life, and his heart and his soul, like flowers that grow out of the cracks on the pavement. Stubborn. And now, this._

_“You look very serious," she says, then spits the olive pit onto the palm of her hand and attempts to toss it into the bin. It misses and she laughs, picks her wand up from the counter and carefully levitates it into the bin. Her voice gives nothing away. It doesn’t waver, it doesn’t rise, it shows no fear, no sadness._

_He wants to shout. Draco really, desperately wants to shout. He has never, in over ten years, shouted at Astoria._

_“Well, yes. I feel like this is kind of a serious situation we’re in.” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, what to look at. Certainly not her, he can’t look at her. Eating her olives, swinging her legs, humming her song, like their lives have not just been turned upside down. He’s just standing there, right in the middle of the kitchen. He doesn’t even really know why they’re in the kitchen, of all places. He’d simply blindly followed Astoria there. Why is she so calm?_

_He feels very, very sick._

_It’s obvious now, he knows the answer, but he has to ask. “You knew, didn’t you?”_

_“You knew as well, Draco.” Her voice is soft. “We knew it was a risk.”_

_“No. I mean, you knew. The past few months you were losing weight, you were tired all the time, your magic was…” What was that word she kept using? Ah, “wonky.”_

_He looks at her then and she looks so young. Her hair is half done up, a few brown strands loose around her face. He wishes Scorpius looked like her._

_“I thought it might be.”_

_Unexpectedly, the dam breaks and his eyes immediately fill with tears. At least he’d held it together at St. Mungo’s._

_Astoria jumps off the counter gracefully and slowly walks over. He watches her and a shiver goes through him. If it’s a reaction to her bare feet on the cold tile or the sadness that wraps itself around his heart, he’s not sure._

_“I don’t want to lose you.” It’s not quite a sob, not quite a hiccough._

_Astoria strokes his cheek softly. “I know. Whatever happens, it’ll be worth it. We have Scorpius.”_

_Scorpius. Scorpius, who is five. Scorpius, who won’t understand why his maman has her days numbered. His chest hurts so much, he thinks his heart is actually, physically breaking._

_“They said we could have five years. Ten, even, if we’re lucky. I might see him off to Hogwarts.”_

_He thinks maybe there’s a way they can transfer the curse. Scorpius needs a mother more than he needs a father. Draco certainly could have done without his._

“Draco.”

That voice.

“Draco, darling. Can you wake up for me?”

 _That voice. What is he doing here?_ He doesn’t belong here. No one else belongs in this moment. It’s his. His and Tori’s.

He tries to open his eyes but he can’t. There’s a warm hand around his and thank Helga for it, he’s freezing. He can’t move his body but he’s so cold. He wants to tell Astoria that he’s cold, maybe get another blanket?

Astoria. _Please._

The words don’t come. The hand feels weird in his, _too_ warm. It’s not soft and dainty like Astoria’s, but it must be her. No one else loves him. It’s just like the time when Scorpius was a baby and Draco learnt the hard way he’d never had dragon pox. Astoria had held his hand, and brought him cold damp towels for his head, and read his favourite books to him softly while he floated in and out of consciousness. 

Tori. 

But… Scorpius is not a baby. And it can’t be Astoria because she’s… no, no, no, no, _no_.

He can’t breathe and he’s holding onto that hand, so warm, so warm. Soft, not like Tori’s, but soft and reassuring. An anchor.

_Astoria looks beautiful in her hospital bed. She can barely manage a Lumos these days and he knows the Healers wouldn’t have done it, so he knows it’s not a Glamour. It’s all her. She’s pale, her skin sagging a little in places. He doesn’t remember the last time she didn’t have those deep, dark circles under her eyes, but by the Gods, is she beautiful._

_She’s asleep when he comes into the room. She sleeps a lot these days. He holds her hand and reads whatever muggle novel he’s devouring out loud. Some days, all he does is stare. She doesn’t like this. Whenever she wakes up to find him just looking at her she frowns softly and says “You’re looking at me like I’m dead already.”_

“Draco. It’s only a nightmare, darling.”

_Astoria looks beautiful in her coffin. He’s dressed her himself and he knows his ancestors are crying out wherever they are at how improper that is. She’s wearing that sage green linen dress with the buttons all the way down the front. Her “comfy dress”, she called it. “I want to be comfortable, wherever I am going. Make sure they don’t put a bra on me, Draco. If I have to wear a bra for eternity, I will come back and haunt you.” He abides by her wishes, of course, but he would be lying if he said he isn’t tempted - having the company of her ghost would definitely beat the loneliness he feels creeping into his bones._

“Draco. Darling.”

The voice is back. _Why_ is he here?

_His mother is wearing those dark velvet robes again, and his father has his hair pulled back with a satin bow. They do themselves up as if for a ball, for a gala, but his mother’s hair is in disarray, strands fallen from her small bun carelessly, his father’s eyes are rimmed red and he could honestly use a shave. They stand in the doorway to his room and his father says his name in a solemn voice. His mother says “It’s time.” and he knows what that means, because there’s a sharp tug at his arm and it’s more painful than one of aunt Bella’s Crucios. He looks down and the snake is slithering about his arm, the skull opening its mouth wider and wider and the blackness of it is spreading, like a fallen inkpot over a piece of parchment, and soon his whole arm is black, dripping down his hand like water. Like the tears that won’t stop. Like his blood on his Mother’s pristine white handkerchief._

“Draco.”

_Father is being taken away in chains. Draco feels numb. Draco feels happy. He feels guilt and shame. Astoria looks beautiful in her hospital bed. Astoria looks beautiful in her coffin. Scorpius is put in his arms for the first time and he cries. The snake is slithering about his arm, the skull opening its mouth wider and wider._

“Darling, please, come on.”

_Father is being taken away in chains. Draco feels numb. Draco is sitting at a table when they bring Charity Burbage in. The snake is slithering about the dinner table. Draco is sitting at a table when they bring Pansy in. She looks him in the eye and says “Draco, please.” The black is spreading, like a fallen inkpot. Astoria looks beautiful in her hospital bed. Blaise looks beautiful in his coffin. Scorpius is put in his arms for the first time and he cries._

“Draco.”

_Father is being taken away in chains. Draco is being shaken by someone’s hands. Draco feels numb. He is sitting at a table and the snake is slithering about and the snake is eating Pansy, Blaise, Theo, Millie, Greg, Daphne, Vince. Vince. Harry looks beautiful in his hospital bed. Scorpius looks beautiful in his coffin. No._

He screams himself awake.

“There we go, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

_Harry._

He knows he gasps, knows he tries to sit up. But he doesn’t know how long it goes on for. When he comes to, he’s on Harry’s lap, snot and tears running down his face like a waterfall. His t-shirt is sticking to him with sweat.

“Hey, darling. I’m here. You’re okay.”

His throat hurts, but he manages to croak out a quiet “What’s the time?”

“About four or so. Maybe five. How do you feel? What can I get you?” Harry looks so worried, it makes him feel guilty for whatever exactly went on.

“Just stay.”

Harry brushes Draco’s hair off his face with gentle hands. “Oh, Draco. For as long as you need me to.”

It’s a novelty, being held. It’s reassuring, it’s warm, it’s comforting. It helps him pretend for a little longer that he doesn’t have to analyse what his nightmares mean. He is exhausted but he won’t go back to sleep. Not until much later.

He decides he wants to tell Harry about Astoria. He wants to tell Harry about his friends, whom he doesn’t see enough because he’s too busy making himself miserable. He can’t bring himself to, so he remains quiet. But his heart is still drumming away, much faster than needed and every time he closes his eyes he can still see the images of his friends dying, the images of his wife dying, Harry and Scorpius.

He wants to let himself be held, wants to enjoy the quiet, wants his brain to stop showing him things he doesn’t want to see anymore, but he knows it won’t. So he finds the courage to ask for help. “Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me something good.”

And Harry does. He tells him how the next day they’re gonna decorate his flat for Christmas because it’s honestly way too late now and he’s been too busy with work and friends and enjoying Draco’s company, and it’s a crime that they’ve not done it yet. Harry tells him about his tree (he cut it from the garden in Grimmauld Place while Kreacher sobbed), about his baubles and other tree decorations (Ginny had taken the classy matching silver and white set, Harry had taken the mismatched ones the kids had made, the ones he’d bought as souvenirs from everywhere he’d visited, the ones other people had bought them), about the tiny nutcracker soldier he got that belonged to Sirius Black and the matching snow globes that have a photograph of his father, Sirius and Remus and a photograph of himself, Ronald and Hermione inside.

It soothes him. It’s meaningless chatter, albeit exciting. Draco loves Christmas but he doesn’t spend it at his flat so there’s no point decorating and decorating the Manor… well, he doesn’t want to be thinking about the Manor.

When Harry tells him about the angel Teddy made him at age 5 that still tops his tree, Draco finds a way to talk about Astoria.

Astoria was the only reason Draco could bear going to the Manor, still. She’d made it hers, as she was meant to. But not the way everyone expected. Astoria brought muggle literature to the library, brought foreign food (not classics like French or Italian, but hearty Eastern European stews, spiced Asian delicacies, colourful South American dishes) to the kitchen. She’d always look proper, but never wore black. In fact, her whole wardrobe was bright whites and soft pastel greens, blues and pinks. She didn’t wear heavy fabrics. She wore her hair down most of the time and had no problem running after Scorpius on the grounds, or jumping in the freezing lake any time of the year. Astoria was respectful of her mother-in-law, but not overly friendly. With time, Draco understood the fact that he’d forgiven his mother came from love and the fact that Astoria never would came from love, too.

He speaks softly into Harry’s chest where he’s curled up. He tells Harry about Astoria, about the cheap plastic star that she’d brought with her that now replaced the ancient Malfoy diamond studded star that had topped the Malfoy tree for centuries. About how they didn’t get on at all for the first two years of their marriage. She was too young and stubborn, he was too broken and unwilling. He’d spend all his time with Pansy, sometimes Blaise. Then Daphne barged into the Manor one night to demand Draco explain why he was such an insensitive prick and why her sister was miserable and alone all day long. For some reason, that changed everything. He tells Harry about the time they went to Greece and Astoria swam in the sea for the first time, about her favourite things, her books, her extensive collection of straw hats and head scarves, the cat that she wanted but couldn’t have because all Malfoys were allergic. He speaks until he can’t think of anything else to say. Little snippets of a story cut too short.

“Did you love her?” asks Harry.

“Very much. Not romantically, I don’t think. Well, I guess, imagine if you and Granger were forced to get married and have a baby. I think it’s like that. I don’t know. I don’t have the time or the interest in cataloguing my feelings for Astoria.”

That isn’t quite true. He thinks Potter knows, from the look on his face, but he says nothing. He had, in fact, spent quite a long time trying to catalogue his feelings for Astoria. Pansy had thrown about names and labels, things like “biromantic homosexual” but he couldn’t care less. He hadn’t come to an actual conclusion and it wasn’t necessary. He knows he was never in love with Astoria. He knows he loved her. He knows it wasn’t like he loved Pansy, or his Mother. It just was. Love, companionship, perhaps some deep chemical animalistic bond shared by parents who raise a child together. 

“Is that a problem?” he asks, as a second thought.

“Draco, fuck. No. I’m not here to compete with your dead wife.”

“Good.”

He falls asleep. The next day he tells Harry he’d like to take him to Astoria’s grave. Maybe after the holidays. He tells Harry maybe he’ll tell his friends before Christmas. He tells Harry he’s happy.

It’s not a lie, but it’s not what he means. He means he’s decided that, maybe, he finally deserves something that isn’t rotten at its core. Something that means something. Maybe he deserves a little happiness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry, I cried so much writing this, I don’t even know if it it’s that bad from a reader’s POV but fuck, we’re never doing that again, I can tell you that.


	8. Perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only 35 days to go, so I guess I can say it...? Merry Christmas, everyone haha!
> 
> This is cute. I wanted cute so I wrote cute. Consider this a palate cleanser after chapter seven. An olive branch, if you will.

The week before Christmas is one of the most stressful of Draco’s life. Well, his post-war, post-acquittal life, anyway.

On the Sunday before Scorpius comes home, Harry pops over to Draco’s flat carrying pastries, coffee, and an overexcited Angus that immediately proceeds to piss all over Draco’s expensive sheepskin rug. It’s not exactly a great start to the day. 

Harry makes small talk and tells him about the presents he’s gotten the kids for Christmas while he offers Draco pastry after pastry, until Draco is too full to move. He fusses over the puppy and does the dishes Draco had left piled up the night before. He asks after Pansy, Blaise and Theo with genuine interest. It’s only after Draco’s showered and put fresh clothes on that he realises Harry is acting a little strange. His hair hasn’t had time to dry when Harry drops the “So, I was wondering if you’d come for lunch at the Burrow with me?” question. He immediately knows he’s gonna say yes. He doesn’t want to say yes and he genuinely thinks it may be a bit early for that. But Harry, his beautiful, fearless, jump-in-head-first self, would never deny him anything like that. So, he argues, for a little. After three changes of outfit, two cups of tea and a quick sofa snuggle, they go.

At the end of the day, he can only describe the whole thing as… an experience. A very stressful, but generally pleasant experience. He finds an unlikely ally in Ronald, a soothing neutral presence in Fleur, and a willing drinking partner in Charlie. Most surprisingly of all, he finds long craved forgiveness in George Weasley. 

It’s a little quiet, at first, when Harry turns up with Draco Malfoy in tow. There are no formal introductions, no “hey, here’s me, also I am dating Malfoy, surprise!” Nothing. Draco is asked if he doesn’t mind grabbing the gravy boat from the cupboard behind him within the first ten minutes. Ginevra makes a comment about Harry being late, asks him if they had time for a quick roll in the hay. No one even as much as coughs.

Angus steals the show, really. He suddenly misses the days Scorpius was tiny and adorable and babies were the only subject anyone wanted to talk about. Harry doesn’t ever stray too far, but gives Draco space to make small talk with Bill, discuss Muggle coffee machines with Arthur and get interrogated about his Mother’s wellbeing by Molly.

The room feels tense when they all sit to eat but he can’t tell if it’s just in his head or if everyone can feel it. He ends up sandwiched in between Harry and Granger with Angus at his feet. In fact, he realises then that Angus hasn’t been anywhere except right by Draco since they arrived, no matter how many people have called his name and attempted to get his attention with treats. If the dog knows how he feels, the people must, too. The realisation only makes him more anxious.

Just before the sticky toffee pudding is served, he’s about ready to explode. His brain is on a merry little carousel of “what ifs” that doesn’t seem to ever stop so anyone can get on or off.

As a last resort, he reaches for one of the last things Astoria ever said to him: “If you’re ever stuck or lost, just do whatever Scorpius would do.” He’d snorted a little through his tears, then, but has taken that advice to heart ever since. So, he does what Scorpius would do.

He clinks his dessert spoon delicately against his wine glass until all eyes are on him and stands up. “Hello, Weasleys.” A low ripple of nervous laughter takes over the table. “I just wanted to express my gratitude for how courteous you have all been today. It can’t be easy when you know all my misdeeds from the past. You have all been kinder than what I deserve knowing the death and misery I have caused to so many people and how it affected your family directly.”

Before anyone has any time to say anything, Harry is up on his feet by his side. 

“Oh, I didn’t know we were doing this today. Sit down, darling, my turn.” He says, pulling on Draco’s jumper a little, until he’s sat, probably looking a little flushed and a little confused. “I don’t have a speech prepared but I killed a man, once. Well, actually I think I’ve killed more, but you know, this one is more relevant than the others, I guess.”

_Oh, Harry._

Hermione Granger doesn’t stand up but she pipes up, very quickly. “I kept a woman in her animagus form in a jar for a year.”

Then, Ronald, “I left Hermione and Harry during the war because, well, I had a tantrum.”

“Oh, I want in too!” Ginny adds, raising her arm as if she’s in class. “I broke a Prophet reporter’s camera with a Beater’s bat last week.”

“GINEVRA, YOU DID WHAT!?” Gods, Draco never wants Molly Weasley to raise her voice at him like that.

And, just like that, the sins of 17 year old Draco Malfoy are, somehow, filed in the same folder as Harry Potter’s great deed to humanity. And life goes on.

The next day, he finds himself on platform 9 ¾ alongside Harry and Ronald, who keeps giving them funny looks.

“What? I’ve seen how you act around each other, mate. There’s no way the kids won’t pick up on that.” he says when Harry asks what the fuck is going on with him.

Draco takes a step further away from Harry, which he thinks makes it all worse, somehow. In the end, there’s no way the children would have noticed anything. There’s too much going on: Rose leaves her scarf behind and has to run back into the train, Scorpius trips on his own feet and bumps into Albus who then bumps into Hugo, James stands as far as possible from the rest of his siblings and cousins and, before he even says hello to anyone, asks “Where’s Ted? He said he’d come.” and pouts, looking just like Harry as he does.

Draco thinks maybe Sunday lunch was preparation for this: Weasley children are _loud_. He’s suddenly grateful he only has Scorpius to worry about. Hell, even Harry’s three look easy when compared with the sheer amount of nieces and nephews Ronald has to take home along with his own two kids. 

When kisses and hugs have all been dispensed accordingly and everyone has checked they’ve got their own belongings, Scorpius has to practically be peeled off from Albus as if they’ve been hit with a sticking charm.

Draco shrinks Scorpius’ trunk and tells him “Let’s go, Scorpius. You’ll see each other for New Year’s.”

He wasn’t really meant to tell them then, but the gasp from Albus and the excited “We will!?” from Scorpius sort of makes up for his gaffe.

“Yeah, I asked your dad,” Harry says. Merlin, at least one of them is good at lying.

“Thank you, Mr. Potter.”

“No worries, poppet.” Harry says, with a wink that Draco knows is for him, and not for his son. He ushers Scorpius to the nearest Floo as Harry says “I’ll see you on the 31st, Draco.” 

The last thing he hears before he disappears in the green flames is little Lily’s voice saying “Did dad just call Mr. Malfoy Draco?” and he dreads the 31st very, very much.

That night, tucked into his old bed at the Manor, he texts Harry: 

_“Captain’s Log, Day #1._

_My child talks too much. It’s hell. How are your little shits? How is Angus coping with a full house?”_

“Ha. James is brooding. Albus is quiet/still hates me. Lily is going to hurt the dog if I’m not careful, she’s that excited.” He’s still reading the first text from Harry when he gets a second one that simply says “I miss you”, and he knows then that the next few days are going to be unbearable.

When he walks into the morning room before breakfast the next morning, there is a parcel and a bunch of flowers sitting on the side table. 

His Mother gives him a look that he can’t quite decipher, before saying: “Good morning, Draco. Your beau should be informed that the Manor elves are perfectly capable of preparing you breakfast.” 

It’s, perhaps, a little embarrassing. It is also the best moment of his life. Draco is _being courted._

His mother is tutting as he opens the buttery-smelling parcel and Scorpius is… well, it can only be described as cooing. He opens the package first and finds six perfect looking apricot Danishes, which quickly get taken by Muppy, his Mother’s house elf, to be served with breakfast. He then opens the card that came with it to find it reads:

_“This is me, wooing you, in hopes it gets me in your son’s good books. H x”_

He escapes his Mother’s prying eyes for a minute or two after breakfast to send a note back. “Consider me wooed,” he writes on a piece of parchment and sends it away with an owl.

Time passes depressingly slowly and it makes him sick. He sits at the dinner table for the twenty-second Yule week in a row and pointedly ignores his mother when she so much as mentions a visit to Azkaban. He completely zones out when Muppy attempts to ask him about the goose they’ll be cooking for Christmas day, only realising hours after he should have asked about the vegetarian option for Scorpius. He might as well snore every time his son asks when he’ll get to meet Draco’s boyfriend. He is slowly dying inside from a combination of the realisation of how much of his happiness depends on Harry and having to be at the Manor for longer than 6 hours. 

Time passes depressingly slowly and he marks it with dark but humorous nightly texts that he knows Harry can see right through. 

_“Captain’s Log, Day #2._

_If I never have to set foot in this house again, it’ll be too soon. I wonder how scandalous it would be if I just… razed it down and planted turnips on the whole 2000 acres.”_

_“Captain’s Log, Day #3._

_I’m not saying I am counting down the days until I see you again. Incidentally, did you know it’s 8 days until New Year’s Eve?”_

By Christmas Eve, the only thing keeping him alive are Harry’s text messages. 

_“Captain’s Log, Day #4._

_You know ghosts? The way muggles mean it? This house is full of ghosts. And bones in the armoire. Happy fucking Christmas Eve. Do you have Firewhiskey?”_

That night, Harry phones back instead of texting. 

“Hello, Draco Malfoy speaking,” he says, sitting up in bed. 

“I still can’t believe you pick up your phone like that. You know it’s me calling.” 

“Yeah, but it’s polite!” He argues. They have had this conversation many times. 

“No, it’s prehistoric.” 

“Why are you calling me, exactly? You never call.”

Harry’s voice is soft, a little worried. “Well, first because it’s ‘skeleton in the closet’, darling, not ‘bones in the armoire’.” Draco scoffs. 

“And also because I miss you and wanted to check on you.” _Oh._

Draco hears aww’ing in the background. 

“Fuck off, Teddy, and go back in the other room.” 

“I’m just getting more gingerbread biscuits… HELLO HARRY’S BOYFRIEND.”

Draco remembers to remain quiet, thank Merlin. There’s no way Teddy wouldn’t have recognised his voice if he didn’t.

“Gimme a sec,” says Harry, on the other side. Draco can hear him walking down the corridor and hopes this means he’s going into the bedroom. “You still there, darling?”

“Haven’t moved.”

“Sorry. They’re impossible.”

“I would have thought they’d be in bed, with it being Christmas tomorrow and all.”

“They’ll be going soon. God, this is awful,” he sighs.

“What’s up?”

“I just want to see you.”

“Do you-”

“How abou-”

They both laugh. It’s a small, weak, watery laugh.

“Go on.” Draco insists.

“Do you think you can come over tomorrow? In the afternoon? I’m at the Burrow with the kids in the morning for presents and for lunch but I could get away. We can exchange presents?”

His brain screams a “yes”, but he manages to give back an adequately calm “Yes, okay.”

He has the smallest dose of dreamless sleep that night.

Christmas is only half as bleak as the year before. He misses Astoria, which can’t be helped; but he also misses Harry, which just makes him giddy as the hours pass and it gets closer to 5, when he’s escaping the Manor to snog the living daylights out of Harry Potter, which sounds like a 15 year old Draco fever dream.

Scorpius holds his hand as they stand in front of Astoria’s grave, first thing in the morning on Christmas day. He cherishes it, because it’s rare these days - 14 year olds don’t really hold their father’s hand that much. They stand for about an hour, maybe a little less, until they’re too numb and too sad to keep the heating charms strong and the cold starts making itself felt.

He thinks he won’t cry this time, but just before they leave, Scorpius touches the headstone very softly and whispers a “Happy Christmas, Maman” and the eternal wound in his heart cracks open yet again and bleeds all over everything that is good.

They do presents and hot chocolate as soon as they’re back in the Manor and no longer soaking wet and freezing. He likes that presents are still a big deal, even for himself and his Mother. Say what you will about the Malfoys (and there’s so much to pick from), but Malfoys know how to gift.

Even then, the real Yule joy comes when he walks out of the floo into Harry’s arms and his mulled-wine flavoured kisses. Harry is a little tipsy and Draco is a little light headed from excitement and he just pulls Harry down on his lap on the settee and kisses him until they’re both out of breath. Harry whispers “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you” into every single one of his kisses and Draco’s heart melts. He’s never had anything like this, ever.

It’s an earth-shattering realisation that this was inevitable. Harry and him were always on the cards. He thinks, perhaps, in other realities, different timelines, they’ve been doing this all along. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. A completely ridiculous notion, and yet, inevitable, from the very start.

He wants to keep kissing Harry for the rest of his life, partially because it’s heaven, partially because he’s worried Harry won’t like the present he got him. But they’re running against the clock and it isn’t long until Harry asks if he’d like his present. 

He’d stolen his from Harry’s one morning, after Harry had left for work, hoping he wouldn’t notice, and taken it to that little shop in Wizarding Cambridge that Helen at uni had told him about, paying a pretty knut to get it done properly and in time for Christmas. 

He’s nervous about it now, about having ruined something that was precious to Harry. He wanted something meaningful, something special. He could have just bought him that green cable knit jumper he’d seen in a magazine, but Harry is as wealthy as he is (if not more) and he can buy it for himself if he fancies it.

Harry pulls out a small wrapped present and unshrinks it with a jab of his wand. It becomes very obviously book-shaped, as most of Draco’s presents tended to. Harry passes it over and says “Be careful, it’s a little delicate.”

Draco unwraps it as gently as he can, spelling the tape away and unfolding the bright green paper. The book itself doesn’t have a cover, although you can tell it had once been leatherbound. It’s a yellowed manuscript and he turns it over, curiously, discarding the tissue paper protecting it. 

His eyeballs may as well pop out of his skull with how wide he feels them go. The title page reads “Northanger Abbey and Persuasion” and at the very bottom of the page “1818”.

“A first edition.” He whispers, in awe.

“Mmhmm,” Harry confirms. “I remember you were reading Persuasion that day at the pub. I’m sorry it doesn’t have a cover. They’re not exactly easy to find.”

He’s sorry! _He’s sorry!_ Harry Potter has bought him a very rare, very special copy of one of his favourite novels and he is sorry it doesn’t have a cover. Sweet Merlin.

“It’s perfect, Potter. It’s perfect.”

“Potter, am I now?” Harry gives a quiet laugh. 

“Sorry. Thank you. Genuinely.” Harry kisses him, softly, and he knows he’s fucked. 

His everything is entwined around Harry and he knows that it’ll only keep getting worse and worse if it depends on him, like ivy clinging onto an abandoned house. They’ll have to cut him down to make it stop.

There’s something about Harry’s disposition that changes for a split second then. He stands up for a second, pats his right pocket as if he’s checking he hadn’t forgotten his keys or something ridiculous like that, then shoves his hands in the front pockets of his trousers. His face is fear, relief and indecision, all within ten or so seconds. And then he’s back again, like whatever just happened never happened at all, and his left hand goes for his hair, messing with his bun. He smiles and asks Draco if he’s got anything for him or if Malfoys don’t do Christmas presents.

He hadn’t dared shrink Harry’s present in case it would do more harm than good, so he’d had to be a little creative with it, throwing a concealment charm over it and leaving it on the shelf by the fireplace. He drops the concealment charm and Harry’s head snaps towards it and the sudden appearance.

“Is that mine?”

“Yeah.” He says, simply. Little Harry knows that it has been his for many years now.

Harry approaches it and grabs it. It’s not hard to figure out what it is based on its shape but Harry doesn’t say anything. He looks at Draco as if to ask if he can open it and Draco nods. His hands are clammy at this point and the only reason he doesn’t stop Harry is because he doesn’t have a backup present.

Harry rips the wrapping off and turns it in his hands, face first, then back, then face again.

“Is- Is this…” He glances at his wire record rack that sits in the corner, by the loveseat, with his record player on top, skimming, certainly wondering if it’s possible Draco had taken it?

“Yours? Yes. I got it magically restored for you. I hope that’s okay.”

Harry turns it in his hands again, then strokes the familiar sepia photograph of a building like one would a photograph of a loved one. Then, “so… it doesn’t-”

“Skip, yes. It doesn’t skip anymore. But it’s the same disc. Same sleeve,” he finishes for Harry.

It was important that it was that way. Of course he could have gotten Harry a brand spanking new pressing of Physical Graffiti. The sleeve on this one was yellowed on the inside and had the name Sirius Black scribbled on the very edge. On the backside, there was a large lopsided love heart drawn around the word Kashmir and, in the same handwriting as the “Sirius Black” the words “Moony’s favourite”. 

The Led Zeppelin record was already scratched when it became Harry’s but that hadn’t mattered. It was perhaps one of Harry’s favourites because of who it had belonged to and who he imagined had listened to it on repeat like he does now.

Harry places the record very gently back on the shelf and practically throws himself at Draco in a bone-crushing hug. 

“That’s the nicest gift anyone has ever got me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can't have a bad day if you just think of these two snogging on the hearthrug — this is a scientifically proven fact.
> 
> NYE chapter will be up on Monday <3


	9. An Olive Branch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I woke up feeling disgustingly ambitious and thinking I'll actually have something to post for advent so I'm giving you this chapter a day early and I may start posting chapters a little more often!! We'll see how I feel once I inevitably come down from this confidence high!
> 
> Anyway, about this chapter...
> 
> The boys are finally telling the kids! What could go wrong?
> 
> No massive warnings for this one other than a hint of Jeddy, which I know is a massive squick for some people: Teddy is 22 and James is 16 in this instance, which I definitely don’t think should be encouraged! As far as I’m concerned, they’re just stupidly arse over tit for one another and don’t know how to act and that’s where that ends. I’ll leave more (possibly spoilerish) info on the end notes if you’re not sure you want to read this, but I will say they do not even as much as kiss.

By the time New Year’s Eve comes by, Draco is itching to get back to some kind of routine. He has made his mother agree that it is perfectly acceptable for Scorpius to sleep the remaining three nights before going back to Hogwarts at his flat (or if all goes well, at Harry’s, but she doesn’t need to know that) and the air feels fresher when he walks out of the Manor that evening, knowing he won’t have to be back for a while.

He wears a suit to Harry’s on New Year’s Eve, no matter how many times Scorpius laughs at him, in his jeans and the Appleby Arrows hoodie he got from Albus for Christmas. 

“Dad, my god. Is that a three piece!? By Merlin, what do you need a waistcoat for? Oh! Are you going somewhere else, after? Meeting someone, maybe?” says Scorpius, waggling his eyebrows for effect. 

Draco is half terrified, half genuinely grateful to leave the Manor for somewhere that isn’t Astoria’s grave. 

They Floo in with a box of brownies, a cheese board and a bottle of champagne. 

Harry’s place can only be described as chaotic. Draco had gotten so used to its stillness in the late nights when the only sounds were his gasps and Harry’s moans and its peace in the early mornings when all they’d hear were Angus’ little yaps, the sounds of coffee being poured, and jam jars being opened.

Harry and Draco haven’t really discussed what their plan of action is for tonight, and Draco is _a little_ apprehensive about the whole thing. He discovers that night that Harry is an extremely good liar. He’s warm, but doesn’t let the mask slip ever. He invites Draco in, takes the champagne into the cooling cabinet, offers him a drink. Tells him to sit at the table while Scorpius joins his three children and Teddy who are watching Christmas films. He helps set the table as Harry finishes dinner, managing to steal a bit of bliss with a kiss or two while everyone else is distracted. His heart just about bursts when Harry looks at him when no one else is in the room: like he thinks he is the most important creature on the planet. He misses it whenever they hear one of the kids coming down the hallway and Harry puts his mask firmly back in place. They can’t exactly close the kitchen door, nothing would be more suspicious than that, but he manages to steal a good snog and a cop a feel when Harry goes in the pantry to find breadcrumbs and says “hey Malfoy, can you give me a hand with this?” just to press Draco against a shelf as soon as he’s in the pantry too before saying “You look so fucking hot in that suit I want to get down on my knees and suck you dry.” And, well, it’s not ideal, because of the kids, but it does ease the nausea he feels, if only a tiny bit.

He helps out where he can, standing at the counter next to Harry, whispering half baked ideas for how to break it to the children when Teddy sneaks into the kitchen unheard and makes them jump with a “And what are you two whispering about, exactly?”

It’s a miracle Harry doesn’t upturn the pot with sauce he’s been working on.

“What are you all watching?” It’s a thinly-veiled attempt at not having to answer any questions but hey, Draco’s trying.

“Not sure,” says Teddy, shrugging.

“How aren’t you sure!?” asks Harry, in turn.

“Oh, Jamie was telling me about some Hogwarts Quidditch drama.”

 _Fair. Hogwarts Quidditch drama is always juicy,_ he thinks. Most importantly, they may have just gotten away with being caught in a just-before-compromising position.

“So, what were you whispering about?” Teddy says, pulling a chair and sitting at the table.

“Oh, fuck it.” Harry says, with no preamble, turning the heat off on the hob and moving the saucepan onto the counter. “KIDS. CAN YOU ALL COME HERE FOR A SECOND!?” he bellows.

 _Well, fuck._ Draco just stands. He’s not quite sure what else to do. Draco doesn’t have a plan. Harry doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t even understand how the heathen has survived this long, the way he goes about life. 

Merlin, have mercy. This is worse than the time he asked Harry to put his cup of tea down and Harry decided the perfect place for it was _on top of a book_ , which had so far been on top of Draco’s “ very faintly tinged pink flags” list. 

If anyone ever asks him what it is like to date Harry Potter, the last 30 seconds will do as the perfect example. If anyone ever asks him to describe Edward Lupin, James Potter II, Albus Potter, Scorpius Malfoy and Lily Potter II, he will happily provide the pensieve memory of what he’s staring at: Teddy remains sat at the table, legs spread, a slightly confused look on his face but still smiling; James is the picture of teenage angst (and it breaks Draco’s heart how much he’s reminded of a young Harry when looking at James), leaning against Teddy’s chair with disinterest; Albus walks into the room asking if dinner was ready, stands looking confused as soon as he realises dinner _isn’t_ ready; Scorpius can read a room better than Draco ever could and immediately knows _something is up,_ he stands very close to Albus and searches his father’s face for an answer he doesn’t find; Lily skips into the room humming a song he recognises from Frozen but halts immediately looking at her dad. 

“Oh, this looks like when mum and dad told us they weren’t together anymore,” she says.

Draco forces himself to break eye contact with Scorpius, and looks at Harry instead, who’s still just standing there. Draco’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop, now. 

Harry looks back at him and, god, he is infuriating. Draco looks at the children again, and back at Harry, as if to say “well, you called them in here with no plan, so you tell them.” 

That’s when Teddy starts laughing. It starts with one long shriek that dissolves into almost hysterical peals of laughter. He’s looking between Harry and Draco for confirmation, laughing and crying at the same time, holding himself around his middle as if in pain. It takes him a few minutes, and then he’s smiling, still looking at the both of them, and says “Merlin’s saggy balls. Now _that_ I didn't see coming.”

The rest of the kids look even more confused at this point and Draco looks helplessly at Harry again and whispers a “fix it” through gritted teeth.

It shouldn’t surprise him that Harry shrugs, makes a big deal of holding his hand so it’s very visible and very obvious and says “so, we’re dating.” 

Teddy laughs again, Lily squeals, Albus looks white as a sheet, Scorpius looks serious but Draco can tell he’s pleased as pudding. James simply turns around and leaves the room, half running.

“I’ll deal with him. Don’t worry,” says Teddy, before running after him.

For a second, you could probably hear a pin if you dropped one, and then Scorpius clears his throat and breaks the silence: “Well, congratulations.” He looks at Albus, then at Lily and back at Draco, with a quick glance and Harry and Draco’s still joined hands. “If you three don’t mind, I’d like a word with Mr. Potter.”

It’s a little awkward, but he exits the kitchen followed by Harry’s two youngest. He’s not sure what to do, but he’s certain he is not in James Sirius’ good books, so that is his priority. 

Little Lily looks at him and says “I’m sure we’ll want to talk to you, as well. There’s three of us, though, so we must coordinate first. If you bump into James on the roof, send him down, will you?” She grabs Albus by the sleeve and pulls him towards his room and Draco finds himself standing there thinking _“Gods, that child is 90% Ginny Weasley.”_

As suggested, Draco ends up on the stairs to the roof. It’s freezing, but the sky is clear and the last thing he expects is to find Teddy and James in a position more intimate than expected, each holding a lit cigarette between their fingers, but how else could this evening get even more fucked up?

As soon as he announces himself with a brave “hello”, the two separate immediately and he thinks there’s a muttered “shit” from James.

He’s come with every intention of making peace with James, but he really doesn’t think there’s any chance now. So, the easy way out it is: “Your siblings are holding a meeting in Al’s room, they’ve requested you join them.”

James walks past him and Draco has to resist the childish urge to make sure they bump shoulders. It’s what we would have done to a young Harry, that’s for certain. Teddy takes an unhurried drag of his cigarette but makes a clear move to follow James.

“Edward, a word, if you will?”

“Edward, uh? I really am in trouble.” 

_Bloody. Marvellous._ “Look, this evening is going to be awful anyway, it seems, so if we must have this conversation, we will.”

Teddy’s bright magenta hair turns into a muted mousy brown and he says, quietly: “It really isn’t what it looked like.”

“I really have no desire to get involved in this, Teddy, but it did look like you were just about to kiss and… Look, there’s something I’ve told Scorpius before that I think, maybe, I should have told you too.”

Teddy’s expression is worried, hands deep in his front jeans pockets while he hops from feet to feet. He looks at Draco and nods, a silent “go on”.

“My generation, we… things were complicated. I think, if you collectively go through a traumatic experience it’s hard to find someone who’ll truly understand you that hasn’t gone through it too. I’m not saying it’s impossible.” He thinks of Daphne, thinks of her Romanian husband. Of Greg’s Muggle girlfriend. “But it was hard. So many of us came out of the war and, in an attempt to find some kind of normalcy, got married, popped out children, desperately trying to pretend the bad stuff didn’t happen. I’m not saying James isn’t the person for you, I’m just saying… don’t limit yourself to such a small circle.” 

“I know, I know. And I’m not. I’m… I’m crazy about him, Draco. We’re not, though. Like, dating.” He sighs, a deep, long, pained sigh, and it breaks Draco a little. “He’s 16, Draco, I’m not stupid.”

_Oh, fuck. Good. Thank god for that._

“Okay, okay, I hear you, kid. Just… keep it that way, if you can? For your sake, and James’... and Harry’s?”

 _We’re not. Like, dating._ Teddy had said. But Draco knows it’s Harry’s son and Harry’s godson and he thinks of the mere possibility of Scorpius dating someone that much older than him at 16 and he knows he’s going to have to say it.

“Teddy. Hear me out. I don’t want to have this conversation with you. Not ever, but especially not tonight, so let’s just make it quick. You’re being responsible about this, right?”

“What do you- oh.” And Teddy’s hair goes very, very red, very, very quickly.

“We’re…”

“I don’t need to know.” And gods, he really doesn’t. Harry will kill him and Teddy in one go.

“We’re not doing anything, Draco. I mean it. Nothing. We’ve barely kissed. I promise. He’s 16. It’s not an easy situation. But we’re not, we’re really not. Not until he’s 17, I mean, not until he’s out of Hogwarts, if I have my way.”

“Good.” And he doesn’t know if he’s ever felt relief that deeply. “That’s good.”

“Teddy? If it does get to the point where you do get together, and you want to tell Harry.”

“Hmm.”

“I don’t think he’d take it as bad as you think he will, if that helps.”

“I don’t know. There are a lot of lines being crossed here.”

“Well, yeah. Harry is not unfamiliar with crossing lines.”

Teddy looks genuinely relieved and takes a step closer to Draco.

“Cheers, Draco. Here’s an olive branch.”

He reaches into his pocket and passes Draco an unlit cigarette with a quiet “thank you,” before turning and leaving him alone on the balcony. If he smokes it before he goes down to face the Potter children and wonders what in the name of Circe he’s gotten himself into, that’s between him and the cold winter air.

Once back in the safety and the warmth of Harry’s flat, he stops in front of the bedroom he knows the Potter children are in and waits. He glances at the kitchen to find the door is still open but either Harry or Scorpius have definitely cast a Muffliato because there are no sounds coming from the kitchen. He finally knocks and hopes for the best. Al’s voice comes from the other side, “come in”.

He knows Scorpius is giving Harry his best “Malfoy meets The Godfather” impression right now and he honestly doesn’t know what to expect from the Potters, but he does his best to seem impassive. He regrets going with Harry’s “we’ll see” plan. They should have discussed what would happen if the kids were seriously against it. They should probably stop making decisions post-shag.

It is a lot less scary than he imagined it. The four of them (three Potters plus one Lupin) are all sitting on the edge of Albus’ bed looking at him when he enters. He waits for the “so what are your intentions?” or perhaps the “what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” or even the “please never contact my dad again”, but Albus says only:

“I’m sure it will take a while for us to get used to this, but we all agree dad seems happy now. We will have to warn you, though…”

“If you hurt dad, you’re in real trouble.” Lily finishes for him.

He’s trying very hard not to laugh, but then Teddy does, so he cracks.

“I’ll do my best. I promise I don’t have any ill intentions toward your father. In fact, I care for him very much.” He says, and he gets a weird, heavy feeling in his chest that he has said it to his children, but never to Harry. He’s never even told Harry he _likes him._

It is a weird evening. By the time they all get back to the kitchen the Muffliato has been dropped and Scorpius is placing baskets full of fresh bread on the table, as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. 

_Harry looks gorgeous._ He looks happy and - wait - he got the bloody green cable knit jumper for Christmas because he is wearing it and it looks just as good as Draco had imagined it. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t noticed it earlier in the evening, but he supposes he was rather preoccupied.

He loves Harry in a suit, he does. He loves Harry in his ratty t-shirts and gym shorts and he certainly loves Harry in just his boxer shorts. He loves Harry in a towel, fresh out of the shower. But all of those could be Harry Potter. The one in a suit certainly is. The others are, arguably, many people's dream Harry Potter. But this: comfortable, smiling, tea towel over the shoulder as he stirs something that smells sweet and mustardy at the same time, wearing a comfy-looking pair of black jeans and a jumper - that’s _Harry_. In his mind, that’s _his Harry._ And he gets to look at him like this, openly. It’s not like he’s drooling, there are children present after all. But he doesn’t have to hide the affection, he doesn’t have to pretend his heart doesn’t skip a beat whenever Harry smiles at him.

“Did you three” and he points a wet wooden spoon at his children “finish torturing my boyfriend, then?”

James looks away at the word boyfriend, but Albus smiles, then, for the first time since Harry had held Draco’s hand earlier, and Lily nods. “No torturing!” she says.

“Good. Dinner’s ready.”

_And it’s really, really good. As if Draco didn’t have enough reasons on his list of “Why I Should Endeavour to Keep Potter as My Boyfriend For as Long as Possible”. Fuck._

It is a weird evening. He’s not sad, not really. In retrospect, he feels like it’s gone as well as it was possible. There’s a weird atmosphere in the air. Harry is all smiles but it all feels a little gloomy. He supposes it is the nature of the holiday. 

As intrinsically prone as he is to melancholy, Draco doesn’t share the typical end-of-the-year blues that seem to plague everyone else. Maybe because he reflects on his actions and on the state of things constantly, he doesn’t need to wait until the end of the week or the month or the year to analyse and reflect. That’s a daily task. 

Maybe because he knows time isn’t real. Maybe because Harry Potter has got his hand wrapped around Draco’s and Scorpius looks happy raving about something he read on muggle fireworks while Lily and Albus do their best to follow. Maybe because of that moment, when they all climbed the steps onto the roof at quarter to midnight, Scorpius looks at him and says “I’m really happy for you, dad”. 

Maybe because when he thinks about Astoria he doesn’t think about how she’s dead but about how she’d love this. About how she’d probably sit on the edge of the roof and Draco’s anxiety would flare up just thinking about the possibility of her falling and she’d hold a bit of cheese and cracker between her fingers, honey dripping down onto the floor carelessly, almost like Harry does, and she’d drink her champagne all in one go and then complain about how “bubbles” always give her a headache. 

_She’d love to be here_ , he thinks and it warms his heart. It’s a happy thought. She’d love to be here. Hair in the wind, a soft, light knit around her shoulders to keep her warm, a smile in her face. And he thinks how maybe she would hold his other hand and she’d kiss his face but not his lips, like Harry does. 

He misses her, then. But it feels more like a deep ache than a stabbing pain, and maybe that’s what growth is.

At midnight, Harry really does kiss him, full on his mouth, with all the kids present. No one is really looking because they’re busy jumping about and shouting “Happy New Year” and hugging, but he knows _they know it’s happening._

Harry hugs him tight and he holds on, enjoying the warmth and the affection that comes with it. He opens his eyes to find James looking back at him from the other side of the roof. Their eyes meet and there’s something of an understanding. “ _I don’t trust you”_ is what James’ eyes and locked jaw say. 

And he supposes that’s fair, not many people do. Draco blinks, holds James’ eye for another second and hopes his message is received.

_“I’ll just have to show you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, about the Jeddy issue: I wanted to get Draco in this situation in which he has to look after someone he loves (Teddy) who is an adult but obviously someone Draco has seen grow up and has a paternal instinct over and also where he is forced to play protective dad for one of Harry’s children. I didn’t want this to be a Harry/Draco and Albus/Scorpius (not that I’m against it) so Teddy/James made the most sense for the story I am building. GoodDad!Draco is my absolute fav and this gave me a chance of writing him as a good dad to someone other than Scorpius, which I loved. Teddy and James are about to kiss when they're caught in this chapter and Draco has the conversation with Teddy about boundaries and we learn there's nothing actually going on between Teddy and James but that they obviously having feelings for each other that they don't know how to deal with!
> 
> Hoping that doesn't put anyone off as it's a very very small part in this chapter and has no real consequence to the plot except for furthering James' dislike of Draco and for building on Draco's good dad characterisation :)


	10. Again and Again and Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mari: “Oh, you know, there’s very little drama in this fic, I want it to feel like a slice of life type thing, it’s just an exploration of Draco’s feelings and their relationship growing”  
> Also Mari: *writes this chapter*
> 
> Enjoy, pals! 
> 
> Warnings for some panicking, some anxiety and a teensy bit of angst — sorry!

January goes by in a blur. Harry works less and less hours, says “he’s only ever really called in for big messes” and Draco still doesn’t really understand how that job works, but there are very blurred lines when it comes to where the wizarding world meets muggle society, and he doesn’t care enough to dig deeper. Draco, on the other hand, works harder than ever. He’s got until April, technically, to finish his thesis and presentation but he’d decided he was well on track, so he’d asked for a March defense date. In hindsight, that was probably Yuletide wishful thinking. 

So Draco comes and goes from Harry’s place at any time of the day he wishes. He does research all morning and pops over for lunch some days, he types furiously on his laptop well into the evening and goes over after dinner some others, sometimes he naps all afternoon, works halfway into the night and tiptoes into Harry’s bedroom at 3 in the morning to find Angus in bed snuggled against Harry’s chest.

The worry is that they’re doing this thing now, where they never really sleep separately. Of course, with it being the two of them, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy in their infinite inability to have a normal conversation and fear of commitment due to a lifetime of not being good enough, Draco imagines the thought of asking the other to move in together hasn’t even been considered by either. Well, it kind of has, at least by Draco, but it’s not like he’s gonna bring it up. It’s almost like they’re not fully grown men with teenage children. 

By the first week in February, Draco couldn’t tell you what day it is if you asked. When he gets home from doing research all day one night, the house is quiet and that should be his first clue that something is off. The house is never quiet if Harry’s at home, and he _should_ be. There isn’t the faint buzz of the telly from the sitting room, or music (and Harry’s abysmal singing) from the bedroom, no clunking and banging of spoons against pots or the scraping of a baking tray against the cooker rack. And then, as he’s about to text Harry to ask where he is, oh so quietly, comes Hermione Granger’s voice… “Harry, are you quite sure you’re not overreacting? I don’t think that’s how he'll take this at all...”

He should announce himself, he should and he knows it but _there is something_ in Hermione’s voice that tells him maybe he should hear it, he should know. “I just don’t know how- how to tell him.” Harry’s eerily quiet voice followed by a small, muffled hiccup. Is Harry... crying? Fuck, what has happened?

“Oh, Harry,” she says and Draco has personally never heard it in that voice, in that tone before, but he’s distinctly sure Hermione has said it a million times in the past 30 years.

“I mean, I want to tell him. He needs to know. I don’t think he knows and I want him to know.” 

Both voices are very quiet and he really only catches every other sentence but it doesn’t take a genius to make the assumption that the him in question is, well, _him._ In any case, even if it took a genius - he sort of was one, wasn’t he? Maybe he really should interrupt now. He’s tired, basically a month away from defending his thesis, running himself ragged, hoping a week between that and Scorpi- well, _the children,_ coming home for the spring holidays was enough to rest and recharge his batteries. Point is, he’s exhausted and probably jumping to conclusions. Probably.

“I’m just scared, ‘Mione, he’ll take it the wrong way.”

“How is there a wrong way, Harry, for god’s sake!” From the tone of her voice, this conversation has been going on for way too long and she’s starting to get tired.

“And Albus and Scorp, they keep sending letters about how they’re basically brothers now and they’re excited about sharing a room, they won’t like being separated.”

Oh. _Oh, fuck._ Fuck. _Fuck. FUCK._ Harry’s breaking up with him. He can feel the panic rising in him. He should leave. He only half registers Hermione telling Harry the kids don’t have to be separated and he’s being a drama queen and he should just talk to Draco because they’re both adults.

 _Fuck, fuck, Draco Lucius Malfoy, calm the fuck down,_ he repeats over and over again in his head. Okay, deep breaths, ideal plan of action: leave immediately, do not contact Potter for a whole week, borrow Pansy’s elves to pick up his stuff, inevitably break Scorpius’ tiny innocent heart but never stop him from seeing Albus, focus on graduating and continue being… a sad loner with no social life but glorious good looks?

It would have been the perfect move, had he not tripped over a fucking dragonhide boot Harry had left by the kitchen door in his rush to leave, dramatically revealing his presence and ruining his absolutely foolproof plan of action.

“Draco?” He doesn’t reply, he doesn’t know how to, what to say. Should he pretend he just got home and hasn’t heard anything? As if he had the strength to pull his face back to normal after what he heard. _No, I guess we’re really doing this, right now_ , he tells himself.

He hears the footsteps first, a whispered “you’ll be fine.” Harry whispers something back but he doesn’t catch it. More footsteps: Harry’s bare feet softly making their way to Draco, Hermione’s block heels tapping rhythmically on the wooden floor in the opposite direction. Harry rounds the corner from the corridor into the open hall to face Draco just as the blonde realises that the sound of the Floo means it’s just the two of them now.

Harry looks like shit. Like he hasn’t slept for a week, like it’s somehow Draco’s fault that he is breaking up with him. In what should be an impossible feat, his face drops even further when he looks at Draco. To be fair, Draco didn’t make an effort at all to look calm and collected, there wasn’t any point. He can only imagine what he looks like, set jaw, gritted teeth, icy eyes staring straight at Harry, daring him to pull his wand out and make it quick. _Oh gods, make it quick, because I can’t suffer anymore._

“You’re early”, Harry says, in no more than a whisper.

_The fucking nerve on this wanker._

“Well, not really.” He crosses his arms over his chest in front of him, completing the face-like-thunder look. Harry then glances at the clock above Draco’s head on the wall.

“Ah.” he says simply.

“How long have you been having that little chat with Gr-”

“How much of that conversation did you hea-”

They _really_ need to stop doing that.

His heart is breaking in pieces and he's stubbornly holding himself together as much as possible, while Harry actually looks like he may just burst into tears. 

“I didn’t want you to… well, I didn’t want you to hear it like that.”

He realises then that Harry is not going to say it. He’s never going to break up with him. He knows Draco knows now and that’s that. He didn’t want him to “hear it like that”. Draco actually scoffs at this.

He should have known they’d gone into it too quickly. Three months and their lives were so deeply entangled they might as well have gone through a bonding ceremony. How stupid, how naive, how hopeful, after all this time, to think he could actually be happy. They’re just standing there in the entrance hall, with Draco still wearing his coat and scarf, staring at each other. 

What if this is the last they ever see of each other? A sad, crushed Harry Potter in ratty navy blue joggers that Angus has chewed through in several places, a faded burgundy Gryffindor t-shirt that is slightly too tight on the arms and a furious, heartbroken Draco Malfoy still a little damp from the rain. Harry blinks his tears away and opens his mouth, like a shiny goldfish in a glass bowl, but nothing comes out. Draco wonders if these three months meant something completely different to Harry than they did to him. How dare Potter look at him like a kicked crup? How dare he stroke his hair to sleep the night before whispering sweet nothings all the way, take Draco’s cock in his mouth as if the world will only function normally after Draco comes that very morning, and then do _this_? 

His hands are clammy, he’s too hot in his coat and scarf because the heating is always on at Harry’s. 

He feels dizzy. Probably didn’t have enough water, probably had too much coffee, probably didn’t let enough light in while he was typing up notes for his presentation, probably didn’t have enough fresh air in the past week, probably shouldn’t have texted Harry Potter back that Wednesday back in November, probably shouldn’t have gone on dates with him, probably shouldn’t have found out how holy his body feels from the inside, and met his friends, and told their children they were together and gotten a fucking do- 

Oh Godric help him, the dog. He’s never going to see Angus again. Oh Salazar almighty, the dog, the dog, the dog, _their_ dog. He wants to stop his brain from going so fast because they’re still just standing there and no one is saying anything. He wants to say something, he wants to look put together, he wants to stop being a fucking disaster of a human being, he almost wants to be seemingly cool and collected 14 year old Draco Malfoy again, but most of all he wants to strangle Harry, he wants to hex his balls off, he wants punch that beautiful fucking face of his bloody. He wants to say “fuck off, Potter” and disapparate somewhere very, very far for a long, long time.

Alas, in a tiny voice, he says “I can’t fucking believe you”.

Harry looks deranged. And he’s seen off-his-nut Harry before. He has actually seen this man _kill_ , but somehow this is the most insane he’s ever seen him. Harry is standing there, still, barefoot, hands at his sides, half of his hair has escaped out of what was probably a gorgeous, messy bun earlier that day. 

Draco is spiraling, being pulled hard and fast under the dark water, trying to pull himself up, keeping his head just over so he can breathe but he can’t, he can’t - the waves are coming, set after set and his chest hurts and looking at Harry, his gorgeous Harry feels like fresh grief.

“I knew you’d react like this, that it’s too soon and ‘Mione said you’d be happy and I told her she doesn’t understand and she doesn’t know you like I do and now I’ve bollocksed it all up.”

Harry has a habit of speaking too fast, Draco doesn’t really understand it. Like a celebrity at the Oscars naming everyone they want to thank knowing they have a time limit. Like he has a time limit, like he’ll expire if he doesn’t say it all, like Draco will just switch off and stop listening after 30 seconds. He doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t understand any of it. He hears Harry’s words but they don’t make any sense at all.

“I’m sorry, Draco.”

He realises he's not looking at Harry anymore but, more than that, he realises that, this whole time, he has been a ticking time bomb, awaiting for the time to hit 00:00 and it’s the “I’m sorry” that does it.

“You’re sorry!? You’re sorry, Potter!? What the fuck have I been to you the past three months, you fucker? WHAT AM I TO YOU?” He doesn’t mean to shout, he never shouts, it’s fucking Potter bringing out the worst in him. He always does.

“Am I to be the ex you refuse to talk about? You’ll just pretend this never happened? Or am I gonna become the joke? _“Remember when Harry dated Malfoy, that was mental. Ha. Ha._ ” Have you had enough of your post divorce experiment? It didn’t seem to me like you’ve missed pussy much, Potter, but it just goes to show how fucking wrong I have been.”

“Draco, wha-”

“NO. You don’t get to say anything. You don’t get to call your friend over because you don’t know how to break up with me. I just can’t believe you. I can’t believe I let you pull me into your little fairytale world, I can’t even begin to imagine how much this will hurt Scorpius as well and I thought you’d fucking care. If not about me, about HIM. You think this is a fucking joke. You wanted to see what it was like to date at 40, to date a man! I don’t know what you wanted but I didn’t think I was an experiment, Potter. I believed you when you said you wanted this enough to tell everyone, when you made me feel like I mattered. But I’ll just be the boyfriend you only mention when you’ve had too much to drink, won’t I?

“DRAC-”

“I FUCKING LOVED YOU, YOU IMBECILE.” Harry is crying and he feels the sea pulling him under again. Little gulps of salt water, even smaller desperate gasps for air whenever his head bobs out of a lower wave. 

“You don’t understand, I thought you did but you don’t. I loved you. I have loved you for most of my life. I loved you at 11 because you were Harry Potter and you had that scar and I was fascinated by it. I loved you at 14 when you jumped on that bloody broom and grabbed that fucking golden egg and I thought you’d die carbonised. I loved you at 16 when you followed me everywhere and _I was so afraid, all the time_ and I thought maybe you’d save me or kill me but either way I’d have peace. I loved you at 18 when I heard your voice in that cold courtroom, when you handed me my wand back. And I loved you at 24 when my beautiful, kind wife got on her hands and knees and said “you can close your eyes and think of him, if you want” because she was wonderful and I was undeserving of her and all she wanted was a baby. I loved you at 38 when you invited my son into your home. And I loved you not even two whole months ago when you held my hand and you told me you were serious about us and you just wanted everyone to know how happy you were.”

He’s bare now. All of him, his miserable, shitty life all in the open, for Harry to pick apart. His hands are shaking, his scarf strangling him slightly, he knows his hair is all over the place, he’s starting to panic and he hasn’t felt like this in years, not even when mourning Astoria’s loss. He feels like Greyback and Yaxley are holding him down, his Father’s hand wrapped tight around his wrist, the Dark Lord’s wand pointed at his arm, his mother crying softly, not far. His breath is faulting him, he’s panicking and, _oh gods, Harry is touching him._

Arms curl around his waist, head on his chest and he’s sure Harry has to be able to listen to the stuttered tattoo of his heart with his head so close to him now. Harry’s voice is small, merely a whisper into his neck, choked with tears.. “But… how can you love me? I’m- you’ve told me before, I’m in all your worst nightmares. Saving you but letting your friend die,” they both gulp audibly then, but Potter keeps going stoically, and Draco can feel his warm breath through his scarf as the words rush out “slicing you open, leaving you to bleed to death.” He doesn’t think it would hurt this much, seeing Harry Potter cry after all these years, but it does - and it does because Potter is crying _about him._ And then he lets go, for a second and looks him in the eye. “I wasn’t going to break up with you, Draco. I saw this townhouse with a little balcony and I was gonna buy it for you… as a present, to ask you to move in with me, to, er, to tell you I love you.” A couple of tears escape from Harry’s eyes and run down his cheek, leaving salty trails behind. “For Valentines,” he adds, as if it was an important detail. 

It feels like being woken up with a bucket of water to the face, like coming home after a snow fight and getting a little too close to the fire, like running carelessly into the sea only to realise it’s cold enough to turn your dick into an icicle, like that first moment of stepping into a hot bath - when your skin is burning and you feel a little sick. Harry Potter _loves him._ It crashes into him like the waves against those big cliffs in Northern France Mother used to take him to when he was little: relentlessly, again and again and again. 

_He loves me, he loves me, he loves me. Not like Mother, not like Astoria, not like Scorpius. Harry loves me as I love him._

“How could you even think I was breaking up with you? I love you.”

He doesn’t know when exactly his tired knees give out and instead of holding him and steading him up, Harry lets his body slide downwards, gently, and they both end up sitting on the floor, a mess of limbs. His scarf finally comes off at one point, and so does his coat, then his boots. He doesn’t know what the time is, it hardly matters.

Dinner doesn’t happen at all that night. There’s a quiet cup of tea, one slice of toast with too sweet bright orange marmalade shared between the two of them. The quiet is comfortable, Harry knows how embarrassed Draco is to have jumped to conclusions, Draco knows how embarrassed Harry is to have called Hermione to reassure him about his big romantic gesture and they both know the other one is more sorry than words can say.

When Draco spoons Harry close against his body at night, he finally says it, not in the past tense, the feeling of the waves coming for him again but comforting him, this time: “I love you, Harry, so much. You don’t have to earn my love, don’t ever think you do. I’ve given you my heart a long time ago, it’s yours.” Harry turns around and burrows against his chest, a fist closing tensely against his soft cotton briefs and he can feel the sobs wracking through Harry’s body like a lightning storm through a dry patch of wood.

Harry looks up at him and he finds himself thinking “you look like I feel”, which he doesn’t get because Harry is _loved_. So loved, by so many. Love shouldn’t torment him like this, like it does Draco. Love shouldn’t be heavy and unattainable and unworthy of him. And yet, the sobs keep coming.

In that moment, holding Harry close, he realises things aren’t always what he thinks they are. They don’t follow his many lists and plans, they don’t fit into his boxes. And maybe he’ll say to Harry “let’s go see that house”. Maybe he’ll stop worrying. Maybe he will let Harry take the lead with his no plans, no lists approach.

He holds Harry and sleep takes him. The waves crash into both of them like they do against the tall cliffs: hard and heavy, washing them in love, relentlessly, again and again and again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can pry the ‘jumping into conclusions and being dramatic’ trope out of my cold, dead hands lmao


	11. The Chapel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, we're really on the last legs of this story now and I am getting a little more emotional with every chapter I post.
> 
> This one's a little on the longer side because it packs the aftermath of last chapter and takes us through a substantial time jump. It gets a little heavy at the end, so watch out for general poor mental health, less than ideal coping mechanisms and panic attacks. There's a small sprinkle of not very smutty sex closer to the start of the chapter, too.

The headache that wakes him up could duel a red wine hangover and probably win, even though he had nothing to drink the day before. It certainly doesn’t help that in their rush to hold each other tight and whisper confessions of love between broken sobs, they’d left the curtains wide open and, even though it’s only early February, the sun is intensely bright, just to spite him. Draco grabs his wand and charms the curtains shut, being careful not to let his current violent hatred for the sunlight somehow render the charm permanent.

Harry is still asleep, of course. The man could sleep through the Dark Lord’s third coming, probably. And isn't that a cheery early morning thought…

Harry is beautiful. He’s lying on his back, his chest exposed a little, just one nipple peeking out from under the dove grey cotton sheet. His dark hair fanning out, spread over the pillow, one lone deliciously soft and perfectly curled tendril over his right shoulder.

His hair is starting to go grey, just around his temples. It’s probably only noticeable because of how long it is. Draco is starting to go grey himself, but it’s practically impossible to spot amidst the whiteness of his Malfoy hair. It suits Harry, somehow. This Harry - the one he knows. Perhaps not Harry Potter, but Draco’s Harry. 

_Draco’s Harry._

Draco thinks he could happily watch the other man sleep for the rest of his life. Harry looks so young, so unworried, so irresistible when he’s asleep. 

The curtains are thick but the sun is bright enough that having them shut has bathed the room in a low golden light. And he thinks, just like he had the first time they’d shared a bed, _he looks like a god._

_He looks like a god and he loves me._

He reaches out, carefully. They’ve been sleeping together pretty much every night for practically three months now, but this feels different. Momentous. He lets his fingers trace the lightning bolt shape on Harry’s chest. He’s touched it before, but not this deliberately. He follows the shape, how it blooms just above Harry’s heart - the eye of the storm, and spreads unevenly, like a bright flash against the night sky. It’s bigger than the one on his forehead, but it’s shaped very similarly, a long zigzag-shaped branch coming straight down from the middle, the one on his chest stopping just to the side of his left nipple, the one on his forehead slashing through his eyebrow and stopping at the very top of his eyelid. Draco can’t help but be a little fascinated, still. 

He remembers meeting Harry Potter for the first time, not realising it was him. There had been talk of Harry Potter’s lightning bolt shaped scar, of course, and he couldn’t wait to meet Harry Potter at school and become best friends, but he’d imagined a tiny, doodle like, simple zigzag scar. He remembers meeting Harry Potter on the train, extending a hand and blinking in surprise. He had wanted to touch it then, at age 11. Harry’s scar is, perhaps, less of a bolt, more of a storm. It suits him. Harry doesn’t stir as Draco’s finger traces every little line on his chest, slow and tenderly. He finally blinks his eyes open, still unfocused and glazed with sleep, when Draco’s hand moves to his forehead. 

“No one ever touches it,” Harry says, in lieu of your traditional _good morning,_ voice thick and rough. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t hurt.”

“Good.” Draco responds, stupidly. Because he hears what Harry doesn’t say: No one ever touches it, _but you can._

Harry rolls onto his side and kisses him, softly, touching Draco’s hair, and then his neck, and then his side and then his arse and Draco has learnt to read Harry’s behaviour well enough to know what Harry wants, what he doesn’t know how to ask for. 

He sucks Draco off - a Potter morning special - but not to completion. He takes his time, licking, touching, poking and prodding, asking questions in that sweet, docile voice Draco adores. “Can I?” or “is this okay?” or “please let me.” It steals Draco’s breath away when he realises what Harry is asking for, this time. They take their time prepping Draco, getting into position. Harry fucks Draco sweetly and slowly, his small gasps cutting through the stillness of the morning. Draco loses himself in the leisurely rocking motion as Harry drives it home relentlessly. It’s not until they’re standing in Harry’s kitchen preparing breakfast about an hour later that Harry says “I’d never done that before.”

Draco’s head snaps up from the coffee pot. “Uh?”

“You usually fuck me,” Harry says, almost shy, “I… I’d never done it like that before.”

“You mean with me? Because I know, I’m usually there for it.”

“Malfoy.” Harry pins him with a look that says _please don’t do that obnoxious thing you do where you make a joke because you’re not sure how to react to something_. “No. With anyone.”

A feeling somewhere between arousal and possessiveness burrows itself deep in Draco’s gut.

“Oh,” he says, keeping this morning’s trend of sounding incredibly dim.

“It was good. I liked it.”

Draco turns back to his coffee to hide the pleased smile that he can’t stop from forming.

Harry does take him to the townhouse, on Valentine’s Day. It’s… it’s good. It’s beautiful, objectively speaking. It’s closer to wizarding parts of London than both Harry and Draco’s flats, it’s got enough rooms for everyone (“so that’s what you meant about separating Al and Scorpius, Jesus H, Potter, and they call me dramatic!” he’d said), it has a gorgeous little balcony out back and Draco can easily picture himself having his morning coffee on it. But the moment he walks in, he knows it’s not _it._

They have lunch after, somewhere Muggle, because they’re still hoping to dodge the press for a little longer.They know they have their days counted. Every time they step out together, they know they’re bound to be recognised and both Harry and Draco are at a place where they’d just rather not have to deal with it.

At lunch, Harry asks him about the house. Is it not what he wanted? He doesn’t know the answer, really, and can’t explain why he just felt like that wasn’t where he wanted to live, with Harry. Harry says they’ve got time. They’re in no rush. They can wait until Draco graduates. 

Harry says it with confidence, sitting across the table from him, but he looks somewhat nervous. It worries Draco. Harry is never nervous. He thinks of Christmas, how anxious Harry looked after giving him his present, how he’d patted his pockets as if he’d lost something, how lost _he_ had looked. 

“I had a different idea for a Valentine’s present…”, Harry says, quietly. “I have it. I could-”

But Draco stops him. The thing is, he really does want to move in with Harry, somewhere that belongs to them both and isn’t plagued with the past. He’s on a mission now. They’ll find the perfect place.

Draco has reluctantly taken the whole day off. “No writing, no research, don’t even think about your thesis for 24 hours, you can do it”, Harry had said. So they go back to Harry’s after, they watch a mediocre film on the telly and eat more sushi than they probably should. 

After dinner, Harry brings out a thick folder and says: “This is where I found the townhouse. It’s from a wizarding estate agent, but they’re all Muggle properties, or at least partially. Like I said, we don’t have to. There aren’t a lot of options, but you can have a look.” Draco’s eyebrow raises at the “there aren’t a lot of options”, seeing as the folder is thicker than “Hogwarts: A History”.

“I just mean, I want it to be far away from the wizarding world enough that we don’t have to sacrifice our privacy, but I figured you want to stay in London. Also, there’s a lot of detached houses and I know what you said…”

Draco had said a few weeks back that houses, proper houses, that stand on their own and have a garden around it and trees and a fence were for “fuckers who are married and look at the world like they still believe in Father Christmas.” It had been one of those days where Draco was bitter about the world and couldn’t stand pregnant people and wedding photos or couples kissing happily at the café around the corner and children giggling in the park.

But _, fuck, he wants that._ “Just give me the folder, Potter.”

For a long while, there’s silence. Harry slides the folder on the table over to him and sits, quietly sipping on his tea. Draco goes through it. Anything in Wiltshire is a no-go. Page after page after page: Yorkshire, no; middle of fucking Liverpool, no; Norwhich, no; Devon, absolutely fucking not and then…

_The Chapel_

_The Chapel is a former Muggle catholic church at the very edge of the Cairngorms, Scotland, halfway in between Inverness and Aberdeen. Ideal for a wizard or witch who values their privacy. There are very little documents about the building, but research suggests it was originally built in the early 1200s. It is said to have been turned into a school in the 17th century and then a house in the early 18th century as the private residence of a Hogwarts headmaster and his lover. It has since been renovated many times over. It currently features six bedrooms, a bright and spacious kitchen, three bathrooms and a toilet, a dining room, a living room and a small outdoor shed. It is set within a one and a half acres property surrounded by deep wood. It has a working Floo connection and it is within Apparating distance (approximately 25 miles) of Banchory train station, only one stop from Hogsmeade._

It’s an old, stone building with the classic triangular front. There are tall, large stained glass windows either side of the main door and, on the back wall, a giant gothic rose window bathes the master bedroom in a colourful rainbow of light. The building stands in the middle of green - green as far as the eye can see, with trees all around the edge of the property.

It’s everything Draco said he wouldn’t want. It’s the kind of thing someone who marries the person they love in their twenties and has a stable career and goes on to have an absurd amount of babies would choose. _And Salazar, he wants it._

He realises he’s been staring at the page with The Chapel for much, much longer than he had the rest of the options. He lifts his eyes to Harry across the table, who is watching him curiously, a slow smile spreading over his face.

“I loved it, too. I didn’t think you’d agree with Scotland.” He says.

From the very depths of his heart, a memory comes to him. _Astoria laughs loudly, a piercing laugh, gentle but clear, like a bell. She reaches across the table and slaps his cheek softly and says “oh, go on, love, live a little”. Draco smiles at her. “Fuck it,” he replies. She laughs again and grabs for her glass of wine. “You could be happy if you just allowed yourself, you know?”_

 _Fuck it,_ he thinks, again.

“Do you think we can go see it?” And every time he’s a little brave, the universe rewards him with a Harry Potter who smiles at him like he hung the actual moon up in the sky and he thinks he should probably listen to the Astoria that speaks to him from his heart more often.

They move into The Chapel about a month later, with Harry bearing the brunt of the work, while Draco weeps for the loss of his flat - his safe haven during some of the most painful periods of his life - and prepares to become the first wizard in the world to have a PhD in a mixed magical and muggle subject. He keeps repeating it, like he can’t quite believe it. _First in the world. First in the world. PhD. PhD. PhD._ A little mantra of motivation. A little bit of pride that he’s still allowed to have. Something he made for himself. All on his own.

About three weeks before his thesis defence date, he Floos back to the Chapel and dissolves into a puddle of rapid breathing and blind panic while attempting to explain to Harry the Venn diagram that shows his life pre-dating Harry and his life now. 

He goes through what his schedule used to be: Malfoy finances get dealt with on Mondays, owls and phone calls and paperwork and Floo calls; Tuesday is a mixed bag but it often included work and a visit to The White Swan; Wednesday is check-in day, sometimes in Cambridge, sometimes via email; Thursday is research and note-taking day, Friday is more work, writing, experimenting with spells, putting muggle theory to the test with all kinds of conjuring and transmutation; Saturdays are for Pansy, and sometimes Blaise, and once a month Theo, and very rarely now, Greg, too; Sundays are for tea with his mother and a good nap, and a little more work, and the pub, again.

Now every day is a new adventure and Harry is the only constant. His point is, he doesn’t remember a time when his life was weirder than it is now, with all that’s going on. The issue is, he doesn’t remember a time when he was happier than he is now, so he tries his best to embrace it.

Harry is, surprisingly, a really good sport about Draco’s various… episodes. He listens, he holds him tight, he rubs Draco’s back, helps him regain his breath. He gives Draco all the space he needs, and gives Draco all the attention he needs. It’s a delicate balance, and Draco finds himself stunned at Harry Potter’s ability to keep the scales from tipping to one side or the other. One night he randomly blurts out “I miss Scorpius” and Harry looks at him like he knows Draco means “I miss Astoria” and won’t say it. Harry makes him a cup of tea, with a little extra dash of sugar. “I know, darling,” he says, and kisses the top of Draco’s head.

The next day when he comes back to The Chapel after packing most of his belongings into boxes, he carefully places the two picture frames that used to sit on his bedside table back at the flat on the mantelpiece in the sitting room: one is a picture of Astoria on her last Christmas before the diagnosis, wearing a beige chunky knit jumper over a green skirt, a big black silk bow holding her hair up, smiling as she moves back and forth, dancing, then opening her arms wide and crouching just as a chubby little arm comes into frame before it all cuts and loops again; the other one is a picture of Scorpius on his first day at Hogwarts, taken in front of the Manor. He’s wearing his plain pre-Sorting black robes and an anxious smile, standing very straight next to his trunk. 

The day after that, he comes home to find two mismatched picture frames on the other side of the mantelpiece: one shows Ginevra being hugged by James, Albus and Lily, all of them in their Weasley jumpers and the other one is of a significantly younger Harry holding a blue-hair babe who can only be Teddy. He doesn’t mention it to Harry and, as expected, Harry doesn’t say anything about it either. It is simple, but big. Draco is starting to understand that’s how Harry works: _quietly, but with intent._

He has the lease for the flat until the end of the month, so he keeps working from there, allowing Harry to come in and grab boxes of stuff he doesn’t need until it’s just his ugly swivel chair, his shitty IKEA desk that is slightly falling apart from too many Transfiguration experiments, his enormous piles of parchment, paper, research, textbooks, old tomes from the Manor, books from the library at Cambridge and his small laptop. Day by day, his flat gets emptier and emptier and he ploughs on, waking up every morning a little more ready to take Merlin’s College by its horns.

About two weeks before his thesis defence date, he Floos back to the Chapel to find that Harry has turned the shed into an office for him. He has mounted their brooms on the right side wall, which is what Draco had figured the shed would end up as: an assortment of Quidditch paraphernalia, gardening tools, old knick knacks Harry won’t let go of. Yes, their brooms are on the wall, mounted on copper coloured racks, but right in the middle of the shed there’s a pristine white desk with a big, comfortable looking grey office chair in front of it. 

It is a very large desk. It has enough space for a laptop and books and it has three big drawers to the right side of it. Above it there’s a little corkboard and three neat little shelves. Harry has enhanced the whole space by giving it a few extra cubic meters of magically extended space and a window takes up pretty much all of the left side wall. “I know you only have two weeks to go, but I thought you’d li-” Harry starts, but by that point Draco had thrown his arms around his neck and pulled him into a deep, grateful kiss. 

“It’s wonderful. We can extend the desk, pop a little sofa in the corner and banish the kids here to do homework during the summer so we can shag in the house,” he says.

“You’re rotten.” Harry replies, with a laugh. Draco kisses him, again, for good measure.

It only takes two days for Draco to bend Harry over his shiny new desk and have his wicked way with him. “Shh, Potter, it’s important to make good memories in these spaces before they’re properly lived in”, Draco whispers in his ear on a particularly violent thrust. It’s clear on the days after that Harry decides to take Draco’s words as code for “we must have sex in every corner of the property before the children come back for the spring break”. He’s only half wrong.

About a week before his thesis defence date, Draco finally breaks. His thesis is finished, he’s got multiple glossy and gorgeous printed copies, he has a fantastic presentation prepared and he’s saved this last week for last minute touches to it and mostly going over everything so that he can answer any possible questions. He emerges from the shed just after 7, walks the little stone path to the house, breathing in the chilly evening air. His whole body feels tense. It’s not been a bad day, but he can’t say it’s been a good day either. He can’t explain it to anyone - not even Harry. Harry doesn’t understand what it is like when there are too many things that don’t fit into their boxes. Things that don’t even have a box to go into. Too many things that need going in the same box at the same time. He breathes in, deep again. A bad day. Just a bad day. A bad day won’t ruin anything. He’ll wake up to tidy boxes, again. He always does.

But the feeling doesn’t really go away. He goes around the house and enters through the french door that lets him in directly to the kitchen. Angus runs up to him immediately, yapping, licking at his hands as he takes his shoes off, rolling a couple of times and then exposing his tummy, clearly expecting a rub. “Hello, you,” Harry says, from the other side of the kitchen. 

“Hello, gorgeous.” Draco says, kneeling on the floor and giving Angus the attention he requires. 

“Are you talking to me or the dog?” Comes Harry’s amused voice. Draco stands again and walks over to the cooker, where Harry’s standing looking domestic as fuck. Hair thrown up in a bun, seemingly kept together by Harry’s wand, tea towel thrown over his shoulder, bare feet on the floorboards. 

He hugs Harry from behind. He breathes in, deep again. It smells of Harry and of pork and apples and of mustardy mash, and it melts some of the anxiety away. He kisses the exposed back of Harry’s neck and says: “Smells amazing.”

“Are you talking to me or the food?” And they both laugh.

Harry gets him a glass of red wine and goes back to the stove. All they talk about is Tuesday. It has been referred to as “Tuesday” for weeks now because they both know what it actually means. It started with Harry going “So… you know, on Tuesday? Do you want me to come? Is that something that people do? Can I come and support you?” and they established that yes, people are allowed to watch other people’s thesis defence. He hadn’t decided yet if he wanted Harry there - if it would make him more nervous to have to do it all in front of Harry or if it would make him more nervous not to have Harry there to support him. 

Harry is talking about Tuesday now as he stirs the delicious smelling pork, about how Draco should help him pick something appropriate to wear, about how they should discuss how much affection is allowed since they’ll be in the presence of wizards and Draco thinks all of these are honestly really good points but his brain finally catches on the fact that Tuesday now means next Tuesday and not just The Tuesday When The Thing Is Happening and he can’t follow.

It gets loud. It gets really loud in his head and he can’t hear what Harry is saying anymore even though he’s obviously still talking. His body is getting really hot and breathing is hard, so he reaches for his glass of wine with a slightly numb hand only to watch it topple over, the wine going a little bit everywhere, splashing his shirt and trousers, spilling all over the table, splattering onto the floor in a soft _drip-drip-drip_ sound.

Harry is kneeling in front of him next time he opens his eyes. Breathing is still very hard and Harry has got both his hands around his, trying to release the grip. “Come on, darling. Open your hand for me,” he’s saying. “Come on. You can do it.”

When he looks down again, the palm of his hand shows four red half moons in a neat line. From his nails, he realises. His breathing is still all over the place. “Good. That’s really good,” Harry is saying now, putting his hand in his so he can’t close it again. He brings their interlocked hands to his chest and leaves them there. “Darling, can you give me every European country? Alphabetical order?”

There’s a buzzing inside his brain. He shakes his head. No. Of course he fucking can’t.

“Come on, Europe is easy. I’ll go first, you continue. Albania…” But Draco can’t. Harry waits. Draco is panting. “Andorra…”

 _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ What is Harry doing?

“Armenia…” 

“Au-Au-- Shit. Austria,” he finally manages. It’s a slow process but it does come, eventually. He stumbles a little on the Ms, then again on the Ss (there are too many) but a few minutes later he whispers into the crook of Harry’s neck: “United Kingdom,” and lets his body sag completely against his boyfriend’s.

Their breaths finally match again. His heartbeat is only a little elevated. Harry is still holding his hand, tightly between their chests, so he can feel Harry’s heart, too.

“H-how did you know?”

“Scorp. On New Year’s Eve. You don’t actually think he gave me the shovel talk, do you?” Draco laughs. It comes out wet and empty. But it’s still a laugh.

“How would he- oh.”

“Astoria.”

And it sounds like a prayer. From Harry’s lips, in Harry’s low, soothing voice, it sounds like the name of a divine being. _Astoria._

 _Astoria, who, in her infinite wisdom and goodness, had, apparently, taught their child how to bring Draco down from a bad panic attack._ The implications of that would have to be considered at a later time.

“Want to tell me what happened there?”

Draco swallows. Lets a minute pass. Maybe two. Squeezes Harry’s hand harder. “It would seem I am a little troubled by the prospect of becoming directionless once I graduate.” He’s admitting it to himself as well as Harry at the very same time, he realises.

Harry pulls him in even tighter. “Oh, Draco. You’re going to be so great. You’re going to be amazing. And whatever you choose to do, you’ll have plenty of options, I’m sure. Whatever it is, you’ll be the best at it. I know it.”

Harry cleans the table, the floor and Draco’s clothes all with one hand motion, all without even touching his wand - it may as well become a hairstick at this point and Draco thinks, not for the first time, that Harry Potter’s casual displays of power are keeping him alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to be a sap, and it's honestly a little dumb because he won't actually read the chapter — but this one is for my husband, who has learnt every US state and state capital and, more recently, every country in the world by continent and in alphabetical order to make sure I don't miss one when he has to help me exorcise my demons.
> 
> Also raise your hand if you want to move to The Chapel because I know I do!!!!
> 
> edit: here are some links of some of my favourite church conversions/old churches with potential to be converted for your enjoyment, because I am OBSESSED. here's [a beautiful church tower](https://www.airbnb.co.in/rooms/42601716?source_impression_id=p3_1606562091_Lf%2BQa4CAsAFGTJKQ&guests=1&adults=1) in Bristol, a [stunning conversion in a style very close to what I envisioned ](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/5625285?source_impression_id=p3_1606562505_2KX0WmuAacp0jZVN&_set_bev_on_new_domain=1568299282_MzY3ZjJiMTUyZjI1&guests=1&adults=1)The Chapel to have, [this one which is](https://www.instagram.com/the_chapel_conversion/) literally called The Chapel and, finally, a [cheap as chips property in WV](https://www.instagram.com/p/CC_rcC6hE2B/?igshid=6378t3m9uzgp) that is architecturally very different to Harry and Draco's new home, but it's set within a similar landscape <3


	12. Never a Lion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comrades, the moment we've been all waiting for is finally here. darling Draco is doing is thesis presentation!!!!!

Draco makes Harry change his tie four times before they leave. “Why am I wearing a tie? _You’re_ not wearing a tie, Malfoy.” Harry tells him. 

“Because I am wearing robes. You’re wearing a tie because I am saying you’re wearing a tie. This is my day. And,” he adds, “you look hot in a tie.” After that, Harry tries very hard to make them late, but is, fortunately, unsuccessful. 

They take the Floo directly into the college and Draco feels a little lost when he realises he has to let go of Harry’s hand. They’re plenty early, so he sends Harry to get him a coffee while he sets up in the auditorium. He’s immediately ambushed by his thesis supervisor, Professor Robbins, babbling away about how excited he is and how the turnout is expected to be remarkably high. There has been quite the buzz since his thesis subject was formally announced. He can’t help but be a little prematurely proud. 

He gets to work setting up the presentation, _accio_ ing and unshrinking the copies of his thesis out of his bag, looking around the room for the spots where his eyes will fall naturally, making sure he can avoid direct eye contact with strangers.

Harry brings him a milky, nutty, sweet coffee and sets it on the desk next to Draco. “This place is so cool,” Harry says, with childlike awe in his eyes. It makes Draco want to leave this room and give him the tour, show him how _cool_ Merlin’s College is. But the whispers start almost as soon as Harry sets Draco’s coffee down. God damn him. Twenty three years after the war and The Saviour is still the most recognisable celebrity in the wizarding world. 

“You should have come in full Auror regalia,” Draco whispers. Harry gives him an odd cheeky smile and scratches at his hair nervously. “What?” Draco asks. “I’ll tell you later. Where should I sit?” And Draco instructs him to go right in the centre of the auditorium, a few rows up, so that, if he finds himself a little lost, he can lock eyes with Harry without it appearing odd to anyone watching. 

He sits on the desk, crosses his legs, turning on his charm. _He can do this._ The auditorium starts filling up, just like Robbins said it would. Draco’s heart skips a beat or two when The Master of Merlin’s College herself walks into the room and takes a seat in the front row. 

He’s been saving this for when the panic would start to settle in, so with about five minutes to go, he grabs his phone out and texts Harry: “Did I tell you my whole thesis is based on Animagus forms?”

He watches Harry intently, sipping on his tea happily. He sees the brows furrow a little bit when his phone buzzes in his pocket, watches Harry swap the tea over to his left hand and fish for his phone in his trousers with his now free hand. Harry’s eyes open wide and bright when he reads it and he looks straight at Draco instead of texting back. There’s a question there. Excitement, too. Draco texts again: “You have one chance to guess.” And Harry mouths one word back at him, slowly, making sure Draco can read his lips clearly: “Ferret.”

He writes one final text and pockets his phone again after hitting send: “Dickhead.”

Draco settles into his role as soon as he passes copies of his thesis to the committee, dims the lights and starts. It’s like a fiery shot of adrenaline has just been pumped into his veins. He doesn’t miss any points on his list, doesn’t fail to answer any questions and isn’t afraid to say that there is so much more that can be researched on the matter. 

He thanks his lucky stars when the question he’s been waiting for comes from none other than The Master. 

“That’s a really good point,” he says, trying not to make it obvious he’s been dying for someone to ask so that he can bring out the big guns. So far he’s only spoken of his research, it’s about time everyone gets to _see_ his research instead of only hearing about it. “You could argue that the idea that one’s Animagus form is permanent and immutable is simply based on folklore and superstition. As I’ve explained, according to the laws of transmutation, it is totally plausible that one person could have several forms.”

“Take me, as an example. I was 25 when I first managed a full Animagus form. My son, Scorpius, had just been born. It came as no surprise, at the time, that I took the form of a scorpion,” he says, and drops his wand on the desk before transforming. He does a little run around, a silly little performance he used to do for Scorpius, waving his tail and clicking his pincers - makes sure he’s been transformed for long enough for everyone to get a good look and changes back into his human form. 

“It remained that way for about five years. I know most of you will be familiar with the process of becoming an Animagus, but there’s one particular step where, to put it very simply, you let your human form go in your head and let the animal instinct take over. This is where emotion and science meet and it becomes a grey area. From the psychological point of view, it made sense to me that I would be a scorpion, not only from the attachment to the animal due to it representing my son’s name, but also, because of particular characteristics of the animal that I related to. I started studying scorpions then, trying to find the connection.”

“Now, a lot of people studying Animagus are researching the corporeal form of a person’s Patronus Charm as a parallel. We know that a lot of people’s Animagus and Patronus form tend to be the same. And we know that a Patronus form only changes due to intense trauma or significant changes in a person’s life.” He senses that he’s stretching it too far for the committee, he looks at Professor Robbins’ face for confirmation. _Right,_ he thinks _._ He’s not here to discuss Charm work. He takes a step back and refocuses. 

“My point is that, in researching scorpions for, let’s call it, pure academic curiosity, I found that I did indeed share a lot of characteristics with the animal. But there are hundreds of other animals that have those specific characteristics too. After that, it took me another five years to find my second form.” And he does it again, the world becoming suddenly bigger and he instinctively stretches his long black cat form - one of his favourites - making room for himself in this body. He gives it a few seconds and comes back as a human. The room has gone very, very silent. The only person who knew he could do this (apart from Astoria) was Professor Robbins and, even then, he’d never _shown_ Robbins any of his forms, so it’s still new for everyone in the room.

He argues the rest of his thesis to a room of stunned faces, but all he can see is Harry. It’s more than just shock in Harry’s face and he knows this because perhaps he can read his face better than he can read everyone else's, but it is awe. It’s admiration. And he’s a little intoxicated from the look on Harry’s face, like he could drown in it. He reins it back and manages three more forms: the crane (the one that comes to him the most naturally these days), the adder (Astoria’s personal favourite) and the dormouse, all while explaining his research and experiments in the differences between a person transfigured into an animal and a person’s Animagus form and why he thinks there’s still an emotional layer to a transformation, even if it’s definitely not as strict as people usual believe. He plays with the idea of changing into the thestral, or the raven, but he doesn’t think anyone wants to see those. 

“Which is to say, I don’t think I’ve got what it takes to ever transform into a lion. Never a lion, even if the lion shares certain qualities with some forms I’ve taken in the past, like the penguin or the fox. Transfiguration, much like many other areas of magic, has got a lot to gain from cross-researching with muggle subjects and I truly believe that within the next 50 years, the curriculum of all magical schools will be unrecognisable, once we start researching and taking _science_ into account.”

The closing of the presentation feels like a dream. He knows the words by heart, has repeated them a million times over in his little shed office, in the shower, in bed at night after Harry is fast asleep. The committee is nothing but praise for a solid ten minutes after he’s done. It’s a little odd. He can’t remember the last time so many people wanted to shake his hand. He can feel the _Potter stare_ on him the whole time. He’s known what Harry’s eyes set on him feels like for many years and that hasn’t changed just because it happens even more these days.

It takes him a good half hour to thank everyone, catch up with Robbins, and grab all his things. Robbins looks between Harry and Draco a couple times when most people have left the room, but does not ask any questions. “Graduation ceremony is in June, but I’m guessing that’s not your kind of thing?” Draco gives him a kind smile instead of an answer. “Thought as much. I’ll see you around. Don’t be a stranger.” Robbins says, patting him on the shoulder. 

Harry finally descends from his seat, taking the steps two at a time. “You never told me this would take like three hours! Are you done? Anything else you need to do?” He asks, very quickly. Draco shakes his head. “Let’s get you home so I can kiss you and tell you how fucking brilliant you are.”

He does. God, he really does. There’s kissing and praising and questions like “How many more forms can you do?” and then “I can’t believe you kept that a secret!” and a little bit of “Draco, you are a genius.” He finally lets out a big breath and allows the feeling of relief to settle in his chest. 

Of course, it doesn’t last long. On Wednesday, there’s a small little mention of his “incredible discoveries” on the culture section of the Prophet and there are many mentions of his name across a few Transfiguration magazines. Draco has to stop Harry from clipping them several times during the day. “I’m keeping the sodding magazines, Potter, don’t fucking cut them up or I will cut _you_ up.”

He writes to Scorpius, visits his Mother and they invite Pansy and Blaise over for dinner. They’re the first guests they entertain at The Chapel and it goes relatively well, even if Pansy is incredibly cruel to Harry the whole time and Blaise flirts with Harry shamelessly. It only gets worse when, after a couple of beers, Harry starts talking back to Pansy and flirting back with Blaise. Draco loves them all dearly and decides they’re never allowed all together in the same room again. 

On Thursday, however, he finds a clever photomontage of himself and Harry with the title “The Boy Who Lived and The Baby Death Eater?” in the gossip pages. 

He runs up the stairs and drags Harry out of the shower to show him. Out of all the absurd things going through his head, Harry having a meltdown was very, very low on the list, but it’s what happens. It starts as a temper tantrum. “They have no right!” He goes very red in the face, and mumbles continuously as he puts clothes on. “And calling you _that_!” He keeps going, as he marches down the stairs and puts the kettle on, Draco on his heel like a lost child. “I’m going to ruin the bloody Prophet, Malfoy. I should have done it years ago.”

It takes Harry a little while to calm down. Draco realises Harry knows exactly what to do when he has a meltdown, but Draco has no idea what to do when Harry goes on a rampage like this. He must fix this oversight, later. For now, he has to _reparo_ several things around the house and make sure Harry isn’t going to Floo into London and casually commit arson. 

In the end, it’s Ginny who fixes it. She calls Harry late that night, worried. After a while she says, clearly “Put me on speaker, honey.” And both Draco and Harry snort with laughter because she’s been on speaker the whole time. “Hello, Ginevra.”

“Oh, hi.” She says. “Good. So, here’s what we’re going to do: press plan 2.0”

“No!” Says Harry.

“Yes. It’s the only way. I’ve got a big game tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll get asked about it, so I’ll go first. You get Hermione and Ron in and I’ll speak to mum and dad and the rest of my brothers. You may want to get Draco’s friends too. Especially Blaise, he’s bound to get stopped at the Ministry. And Pansy. Have you checked in with the kids or do you want me to?”

They had, in fact, checked in with the kids. A quick “we haven’t decided how to handle it but for now, just say you don’t know anything if you get asked.” They’d gotten back the most hilarious, Malfoy-esque note:

_Dear Dad and Harry,_

_Not to worry. You’re a little too late, we’ve all already been grilled, but I have taken it as my responsibility to instruct the Potters on how to proceed. Our official approach is “My father is a grown man and I am a literal child, why do you think I know anything about his personal life?” I will personally be adding “Did I mention I am a literal child? Did you know that, as a reporter, for you to be asking me questions is legally considered to be harassment?” if anyone approaches me in person._

_We will, of course, follow whatever guidelines you have for us, when you make a decision._

_Lots of love,_

_Scorpius (and the Potters)_

It’s the first time Harry smiles in a long few hours. Thank Circe for Scorpius.

The press plan, Draco learns, is what the Weasleys and Harry had named the press handling tactic they had used for the hectic few years after the war. Every time they’d get asked any personal questions they would come up with the most nonsensical illogical answers, anything that would throw journalists off. 

Press Plan 2.0 starts the next day, as promised, when Ginny gets asked “Is your ex-husband dating Draco Malfoy?” and, without skipping a beat, she replies “Harry!? No, of course not. _I am dating Draco.”_

It doesn’t help. At all. He’s glad he doesn’t really have to go anywhere. He spends most of his days decorating and organising the house, now that he finally has the time. If he does leave, he Floos directly to the Manor, or Pansy’s house. It’s a little much, seeing his name in the papers every day. But _it is_ funny, especially a couple of weeks later when they finally manage to catch Ronald, who promptly declares _he_ is _dating Draco._

It takes them a while (a lot longer than it should have, anyway) to decide what they actually want to do about it. Draco is sitting at the kitchen table, cup of tea sat in front of him, Angus asleep on his lap, while Harry does the dishes when Harry wipes his hands quickly, turns to Draco and says “There was something I wanted to say.”

And it frightens Draco to death. “I- well, I should have said it two weeks ago but I was too angry. I know this is all a mess, and I’m sorry. Err, this is a bit insane. Five months ago all contact we had was dropping off or picking up the kids and very rarely at ministry functions and now… we’re here and we’ve got a house and, I don’t know, Draco. My feelings for you have always been…” and he stops there, looking a little bashful, uncertain, like he knows exactly what he wants to say but can’t find the right word “...intense.”

_That’s a word for it._

He kneels in front of Draco, startling Angus, who gives them both a very disappointed look, jumps off Draco’s knees and goes straight for his bed by the sofa. “I-I don’t remember ever feeling like this before.” He says, and looks Draco in the eyes and swallows and it’s very hard to not bolt because Draco isn’t used to this kind of emotional openness. 

“Very early in our marriage I told Ginny I’d die for her and she didn’t speak to me for days. It turns out it doesn’t count if you already died for everyone. But when I looked at you that day in the pub, Draco, hours after signing my divorce papers, in the most unexpected place, I knew I would do anything for you. I would _kill_ for you.” The way he says it sends shivers up Draco’s spine, because he knows Harry _means it_. “And I’m sorry that I can’t stop the press. If you think it’s best if we book a table somewhere stupidly public and get a window seat so they can photograph us, we will. If you want to go to a ministry function and snog in the middle of the dance floor, we will. If you want to release a statement in the Prophet or the Quibbler or, heaven save us, Witch Weekly, we will. God, I, if you said we should get married tomorrow, I would. This is sudden, and it’s messy and it’s, quite honestly, no one else’s business but ours, but I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to give up on this.”

Draco kisses him. “No chance, Potter. And if I did, I’d want the house and the dog.”

Harry finally breaks a smile. Thank Merlin. “Oh, and remember when you said that I should have worn Auror robes during your thesis presentation?”

Oh! The mysterious “I’ll tell you later” that had apparently slipped both their minds. “Yeah...” he says, slowly.

“I quit. No more Auror robes, or Scotland Yard uniform, ever. My last day is on Friday. I kind of have an idea of what I want to do, but I’m going to need your help, I think.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had never done research for anything in my life with the intensity i did for this chapter! if anyone needs it, i've got a list with 20 or so possible animagus choices for Draco based on personality, species traits, the way the animal is portrayed in popular culture, social behaviour and mating habits (i wish i was joking)
> 
> tell me what you think? which form is your favourite and what are your hcs for Draco's Animagus/Patronus? i want to know!!
> 
> edit: i was asked about some of my research, so i've put my final list of possible animagi choices for Draco [up on tumblr](https://onbeinganangel.tumblr.com/post/636212637393420288/hoping-this-reads-okay-as-i-couldnt-be-bothered) if you want to have a look!


	13. Ezekiel 18:20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got an offering of short and sweet for you all on this chilly Monday morning. I start posting my advent fic tomorrow (aaaah!!) and we only have 3 more of these left so you can expect chapter 14 on Wednesday, 15 on Friday and our little Epilogue for Inevitable on Sunday <3

Every year, on the 2nd of May, The Quibbler publishes an article guest written by Harry Potter about the heroes of the war. It had started on the second anniversary of the battle of Hogwarts with a harrowing read Draco doesn’t like to think about. He had sat on the floor of the morning room at the Manor, hands shaking, eyes moving slowly from word to word as if in a terrible dream. And when he finished reading the celebration of Fred Weasley’s short life, he was promptly sick all over himself and the floor - he knew it was about to happen, felt the bile rising in his throat at every word, eyes prickling with tears, but he hadn’t the strength to move. It came as a supplement, separate from the actual magazine, a five pager with a large photo of Fred occupying the whole cover and Draco had kept it ever since, knowing how much every word had hurt and how that was something he had to live with forever. A reminder of his sins.

At the time, no one knew it was going to become a thing, but it did. Harry Potter did not do speeches. Harry Potter did not turn up to events, did not talk about the war, didn’t agree to interviews, didn’t like the spotlight. Quietly, year after year, he would pay his respects in a beautifully written, often angry, always devastating _special edition_ of The Quibbler. Draco would wager only his boyfriend knew who it would be about until May 1st and even then, he probably only shared it with Lovegood.

After Fred, there was Remus Lupin. That came two months after Granger had launched an internal war in The Ministry and called for a Creatures Rights reform. Draco found it brilliant. He wouldn’t have admitted it at age 15, but Lupin had been a splendid teacher. _Witty, kind, carrying himself in a serious manner that called for respect but with neverending mischief in his eyes._

The year after, Harry’s article featured Draco’s own cousin, Nymphadora Tonks. Then came Lavender Brown and Colin Creevey. All five fallen victim, directly or indirectly, to Death Eaters on May 2nd, all five friends of Potter. On the sixth year, Harry Potter shook Wizarding Britain to the core by writing about Vincent Crabbe. Six years to the date that found Draco vomiting all over the morning room, the shock of seeing Vincent’s familiar face on the cover was so great that Astoria had to drag his Mother out of bed to come snap him out of it. The supplement about Crabbe was shorter than the others but kind. Full of quotes by classmates (Blaise and Millicent, the most well adjusted of the Slytherins from Draco’s year), Harry had written about a “ _funny, loyal to the bone boy, poisoned by his family’s beliefs”_. It hadn’t gone down well for him, but, as per usual, Harry didn’t really care. Granger presented an appendix of 57 clauses to The War Reparations Act calling for better treatment of those imprisoned and the acceptance back into society of those acquitted of their crimes the week after.

The following year brought another long, deeply personal, almost confessional piece of writing: _“And without me even realising it, the war had begun,”_ Harry had written to close off the four pages about Cedric Diggory. After that, Harry had kept writing about those lost before The Battle. First war heroes, early second war victims. In 2007, the year after Albus Severus Potter was born, Harry wrote about Severus Snape. For the 10th anniversary of The Battle of Hogwarts, Harry wrote about Dobby. The year after, he wrote about Regulus Black, shattering glass ceilings for blood purists and pureblood-haters alike. “ _The first of three who lied to Tom Riddle’s face, without whom life would be very different right now.”_ That year, it was Draco’s turn to calm down his Mother. 

After that came the highly anticipated Albus Dumbledore article - shorter than expected, curt and to the point, which had left those who can read between the lines with a much different idea of the relationship between Dumbledore and Potter.

In 2011, the year that would mark 30 years since Harry Potter became the Boy Who Lived, Harry wrote about his own parents. The year after featured Alastor Moody, then Marlene McKinnon, then Florean Fortescue. 2015 has both Draco and his Mother shut themselves in their respective rooms and not speak to anyone for over a day (28 hours in Draco’s case, 34 in Narcissa’s). The smiling picture of a young Charity Burbage on the cover of the supplement was very different from the memory they both have of the former Muggle Studies professor. The year after had a joint feature on Gideon and Fabian Prewett, Molly Weasley's brothers, and the year after that celebrated Bathilda Bagshot - _“someone who knew me before I was the me everyone knows and who I was too late to save when it came to it,”_ Harry writes. 

When 20 years have passed since the worst day of their lives, Harry does the unthinkable and writes about a living person. Harry Potter dedicates the 20th anniversary supplement to Narcissa Malfoy. The backlash is absolutely wild, but no one is more pleased (perhaps except Mother herself, although she says nothing - it wouldn’t be proper) than Scorpius to see his _grandmère_ on the cover of the supplement. He owls both Draco and his Mother and you can almost hear his excitement on the parchment itself.

After that, Harry goes back to the dead: in the year Sirius Black would have celebrated his 60th birthday, Potter writes about him. The year after, he writes about Ted Tonks - _“who I’ve heard so many stories about and have no doubt would have been the most fun grandfather to one of my favourite people in the entire world, Teddy Lupin.”_

When May finally comes, Draco and Harry have been together for about 6 months. Harry is gone for most of the day on the 1st of the month and, of course, this doesn’t surprise the blonde at all. Draco had noticed him, for about two weeks at this point. Picking up his phone and typing away in his notes app. Little ideas here and there. Every once in a while, in the middle of conversation, he would just pull his phone out, type a couple of words and pocket it away again. One evening, Harry stands up really quickly and says “Do we have a Bible?” Draco doesn’t even have time to laugh when Harry grabs his coat and starts running for the door shouting behind him: “Of course we don’t have a Bible, I’ll be right back!” He’s back after 20 or so minutes, sits down and confesses in a whisper.

“Okay, maybe I could have Googled that.” Draco snorts and his patience finally snaps: “Who are you writing about that requires a Bible, of all things, Potter?” Harry simply acts like he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Waking up on May 2nd is a struggle. It always is, and it makes Draco feel sick thinking about how many people up and down the country are feeling the exact same way this morning. It’s not like they’d gone to bed on May 1st, in 1998. By the time he got thrown into a ministry holding cell on the wee hours of the 3rd, he reckons he had been awake for at least 60 hours. Harry had told him he’d be leaving in the early morning but waking up alone after months of doing so wrapped around Harry’s warm body is hard to cope with. Especially on a day like today. 

He hops out of bed and starts setting up for breakfast, afraid if he doesn’t make himself busy the memories will start creeping in.

Harry had promised he’d be home for breakfast. “We don’t have to talk about it, Draco. We just won’t go anywhere or do anything. We’ll put the telly on and just survive the day,” he’d said, his hands on either side of Draco’s face, lips against his own. His boyfriend wasn’t one to break promises, but he wasn’t known for his timekeeping either, so Draco busied himself making fresh orange juice and coffee and eggs and putting frozen brioche rolls in the oven to warm up.

At pretty much exactly 10 o’clock, three things happen at the same time. An owl flies through the open French doors and drops a very thick roll onto the island next to him (which is weird because they don’t really get owl post apart for the kids’ letters), his phone starts ringing (which is even weirder because no one calls him that early in the morning and Harry never calls, just texts) and Harry opens the door with force and runs in, looking like he just ran a marathon (which is the weirdest part because Harry hates running and won’t do it unless he’s late and they didn’t set a time, so it isn’t that), immediately closing the door behind him, eyes trained on Draco.

Harry looks like he’s about to say something, but he watches Draco’s face as his eyes fall onto the parcel the owl had just dropped andDraco knows every emotion he’s going through is plastered right on his face - he can do nothing to stop it and Harry is _witnessing it all._

“Please don’t be mad.”

Suddenly, it all clicks. He says nothing; he knows exactly what Harry has done and why he thought it was such a brilliant idea, and it makes him want to strangle his beautiful neck until his gorgeous eyes pop out of their sockets like they do in cartoons. 

They had agreed that fucking with the press had lost its lustre after Draco was photographed walking Angus (both wearing matching camel coats and looking absolutely dashing) in London. It had done its job and they should probably write up a statement about how they had, indeed, “against all odds, shacked up together.” 

_But not like this._

Without a word, he unrolls the copy of The Quibbler to find exactly what he knew he would find. He hears Harry suck in a desperate breath in the background.

The photo was taken by Scorpius on New Year’s Eve. Draco’s hair is unstyled but falling neatly over his face. It’s not what he would like to look like on the cover of a magazine, but at least he looks good in his suit. 

One minute he’s looking down and the next he lifts his eyes up and _smiles_. He knows exactly what was happening in that moment and he knows he was looking at Harry, with his face soft and eyes gleaming. He looks like a fool in love.

Which is fair, he realises. He really is a fool in love. A fool who didn’t realise his boyfriend had been writing about him for the past two weeks. He doesn’t want to read it, but he flips the page open regardless.

 _The Son Shall Not Bear The Iniquity of The Father_ , reads the title. 

Draco wants to scream. _“Who are you writing about that requires a Bible, of all things, Potter?”_

“Potter. Explain.” It comes out as a growl more than anything else. 

“Draco, please don’t be mad.”

“Actually, don’t fucking explain, Potter. Get the hell out of the house.” 

“Draco,” he pleads.

“Out. NOW!” In a rare burst of wandless and wordless magic, he lifts his hand in the direction of the door, and it slams open. They both gasp.

“Please.”

“I will hex you, don’t think I won’t.” He grabs his wand out but doesn’t point it at Harry.

Then, because he has a life-long issue with doing what he’s told, Harry pulls his wand out, too.

“Fine. Fucking suit yourself,” he says in a rather petulant tone, and turns around from Harry, facing the window instead. Harry doesn’t seem to move.

And Draco reads it, of course he does. A declaration of love, clear and open, for the whole world to see. An offer to fight off whoever thinks Draco is undeserving. A song of his praises - his loyalty, his genius, his bravery ( _what bravery_ , Draco thinks), his adoration for Scorpius. A public account of their lives, of who they were in their youth, who they aren’t now. But, at the same time, a blatant “this will be the last time I will speak of this and I will end anyone that dares try anything to jeopardise our happiness.” 

For a softie, Potter can be a very scary man when he wants to be, Draco will admit.

He still wants to fight. He wants to kiss the life out of Harry. But, mostly, he still wants to fight. Not that he wants to shout. He’s had enough, with the argument that ended with them getting a puppy and the argument that ended with them getting a house. And well, thinking of it, maybe fighting works just fine for them. 

“Do I get to take you outside and hex you painfully for this?” he asks, still facing the window.

Harry makes a little choked noise, half a relieved laugh, half surprise. “Yeah, alright, why not?”

And he strides past Draco, through the french door, out onto the little deck, down the steps, and stops a good 5 meters away from the house. Harry turns around, gets his wand out of his pocket, and places it on the floor. Pretending that he’d need it to stop Draco. The tosser.

“No Protegos. No Impedimentas. And _definitely_ no Expelliarmus. Agreed?” Draco gets a little jolt of joy then, just saying it. Telling Harry Potter he can’t use Expelliarmus. Ha!

“Yes.”

“Get on your knees.” But Potter, obviously, doesn’t.

He smirks instead. Says, “Malfoy, you’re enjoying this.”

“And you are, too. You’re not meant to. You should have talked to me!” He raises his voice a little, then. 

“I just wanted to do a nice thing for you.”

“This is not a nice thing! It’s insane.” 

“I was in the kitchen just now, too. I heard you sniffing.”

Oh, Harry is infuriating. “That has nothing to do with anything. The weather’s changing. Scotland’s a menace.”

“But the tap water is so good.”

Draco laughs, then. “You’re such a wanker,” he says, and realises he doesn’t want to hex Harry. He wants to kiss him. So he does.

“You’re the worst. No more of that, okay? It ends now. No more surprises. No more buying houses and writing articles as grand gestures. Just buy me shoes, or waistcoats, I don’t know. Wooly jumpers and socks, Merlin knows we need them living here. Buy me sex toys, if you really must. Take me on holiday! I have never been to America, did you know?”

They kiss for a long time. When they finally break apart, Harry whispers, “But you did like it, right? A tiny little bit?”

And Draco hexes him then. _A tiny little bit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry Potter is a romantic idiot, send tweet x


	14. Stars and Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the love I got on that last chapter????? I am floored. Posting just keeps getting harder and harder because I am not ready to let go and keep getting emotional. Anyway, I've got a feeling you all know what's about to happen in this one!!

By the time the kids come back for the summer, Draco has resigned himself. He knows they weren’t suddenly going to feel like a family. That it wasn’t something that would happen overnight - there would be no incredible shift one day where it finally happened, no grand occasion marked with pomp and circumstance. It would slowly creep in, and one day they would all wake up and things would feel right. 

It had been a miracle of want and need and loneliness and hunger that Harry and Draco had quietly, naturally, made space for one another in their lives. Things don’t work like that with children.

Everything is pretty much the way it was when they told the kids after Christmas. 

Teddy isn’t a kid anymore, of course. _“He’s my child, though,” says the Harry in his conscience._ And it’s probably half because he’s not a kid and half because he loves that his posh cousin Draco and his _old pa_ are a couple and he can tease the hell out of them about it, Teddy is not only incredibly supportive, but their rock when it gets harder to deal with things for the rest of the kids. 

James is still taking it the worst. _“He’s mummy’s little boy. Always has been. Not that he’d ever admit it. He took the separation and divorce pretty badly too. He’ll come around,”_ Harry would tell him. James is polite but never speaks to Draco unless he has to and there is a fair amount of scowling and door slamming whenever Draco and Harry are affectionate towards one another. It doesn’t help that he is 16, and reminds Draco of Harry at 16 - full of an incomprehensible rage about to burst out at any moment. On top of that, there is the issue of Draco knowing the eldest Potter child’s biggest secret. James is kind to Scorpius, though, and that is all Draco can really ask for.

Albus and Scorpius come as a divided unit, but still a unit. _“Do you reckon we would have been like that if I took your hand back in first year?” is what Harry says about the two._ Scorpius loves company, loves the chaos that the Potters bring with them - so different from his life with Draco and grandmè _re._ Albus loves that Scorpius is there 24/7, he no longer has to beg his mum to go to Malfoy Manor or have Scorpius over. 

Some days are better than others but Draco knows that whatever reservations the two best friends have about their fathers dating each other, they are talked over and whispered to one another late at night in the bedroom they now share.

Lily, the apple of Harry’s eye, is slowly becoming the apple of Draco’s eye. The two are attached at the hip when she is home from Hogwarts. It does help that she is splendid with words and an ace at transfiguration. She loves reading as much as Draco does and they often trade books. “I am so glad you’re dad’s boyfriend. Aunt Hermione likes to pretend she loves to read but she is incapable of doing it for fun. She’d rather read the paperwork on her desk than The Great Gatsby,” she’d told him the first time he had let her borrow a book from his collection. _“I think Lils likes you more than she likes me,”_ Harry tells him, late one night. It’s perhaps a little mean to Harry, perhaps a little selfish, but that memory serves to fuel a few Patronuses.

All things considered, it comes as a great surprise that, when things finally shift radically, it is all James Sirius’ doing. 

Teddy hops out of the fireplace in a swift motion, early one morning, and doesn’t even look at Harry and Draco before striding towards the stairs and screaming at the very top of his lungs, from the bottom step: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMIE!” The whole house bursts into absolute chaos, doors slamming upstairs, people running, shouting and laughing.

Draco and Harry carefully go upstairs, cards and presents in hand, to find a pile of people on James’ bed. James is nowhere to be seen but Draco imagines he’s somewhere under Teddy’s chest and Albus’ knees. That can’t be comfortable.

Harry is a great dad. Draco will tell anyone who asks that it’s one of the reasons why he fell in love with him. Harry is a great dad, though it does drive Draco up the wall how he lets the kids manipulate him to no end when it comes to food. That’s how, when the kids are home from Hogwarts, the raw oak table they have in the kitchen is covered in a feast that could have Mother’s house elves trembling in shame. There are pastries and preserves (for Draco), eggs and bacon (for Harry), a sausage butty (for James), porridge (for Scorpius), cereal (for Albus) and waffles (for Lily). Angus gets plenty of everything that is safe for him on top of his dry kibble and Draco is sure that he is becoming a very fat cruppy very soon. When Teddy is around Harry makes pancakes, too.

Draco has asked Harry numerous times about this obsession with food - the answer is always the same. Harry shrugs and says “children should be able to eat when they want to eat, whatever they want to.” And there’s a fire in his eyes that Draco recognises, that he has known for pretty much 30 years. He knows _it means something_ and he can’t bring himself to ask any more. He has some suspicion and he imagines he will be very angry if he ever finds out the full story behind it.

They end up in Diagon Alley for James’ birthday. Scorpius needs new robes, Lily wants a book, James is attempting to convince whoever will listen that he needs a new broom (Draco may do it, if Teddy doesn’t - he is not about to pass on the opportunity to buy into James’ good graces), and Albus, he imagines, is just there because they’re all there. 

Draco is there for the ice cream. Draco and Pansy used to joke that the best thing about having children is that you can pretend you’re doing certain things for them, when really, it’s all about you. Ice cream was that for Draco. Disneyland was that for Pansy, the absurd woman that she is.

He feels tense as they walk along the busy narrow street. People have had time to get used to the Potter-Malfoy situation, but they still try not to go out in public this exposed, especially with all the children. Harry’s hand had started on his lower back, a silent “I got you” that was most appreciated, but there are too many children and a dog and they’re not touching for long. 

People still talk, of course. Not everyone is happy or indifferent about _The Boy Who Lived_ dating _The Baby Death Eater_. When they exit Flourish and Blotts and make a right towards Madam Malkins, Draco is starting to feel a little better. There are whispers and looks, but no cameras so far, and no one has actually approached them. 

Just as they stop in front of Madam Malkins, an old man wearing long grey robes and a tatty hat walks past them, spits on the floor right in front of Scorpius and says “Death Eater scum” and Draco loses it. His wand is out, as is the man’s. And suddenly, Harry is grabbing him back and Teddy is standing in front of him. “Sir, I’m an auror and I’d advise you to drop your wand right now.” 

“I will do no such thing. You’re too young to remember, or don’t care. Or you’ve been manipulated, just like the _great_ Harry Potter.” 

“Sir, I _will_ disarm you,” Teddy says, and even though Harry is still holding both him and James while Draco is still grabbing for Scorpius, Albus and Lily in full mother hen mode, he will admit, for a soft Hufflepuff, Teddy _is very good._

“I will not stand down until this filthy degenerate and his evil spawn-”

He hears the sound before he realises what has happened. James Sirius has escaped from Harry’s grasp and effectively knocked out the old man with a flawless right uppercut. 

“Don’t. Ever. Say. A. Word. About My. Family. Again,” he grits out and Teddy is pulling him off before he gets a chance at punching the unconscious man again. 

Later that night, Harry makes the rounds. He hears the familiar opening and closing of doors, unintelligible whispers, opening and closing of doors again. Harry repeats this three times, taking the longest on the last one. James’ room, Draco assumes. After a while, he tiptoes into their bedroom, with two cups of tea levitating in front of him. He doesn’t say anything but his soft smile lights up the room and Draco knows he’s saying “I thought you needed this”. The bed dips on Harry’s side as he settles himself and a teacup is shoved in Draco’s direction.

“I cried when Scorpius was born, you know?” he confesses after a long silence and a sip of hot tea.

The brunette chuckles softly, shakes his head. “Of course you did, darling. We all cry when our children are born.”

“No, listen. I’m telling you something, Potter, for fuck’s sake.” 

He knows it’s the _Potter_ that does it. Harry still uses Malfoy a third of the time, Darling another third and Draco the other. _Potter_ , from Draco’s mouth, is only used for serious conversations and sex these days. “Oh.” 

“I wasn’t there, it wasn’t allowed. It’s not _proper_. It’s not like I wasn’t put off vagina forever already, but I still wasn’t allowed in. So I waited for hours. I don’t think I really understand how religion works, but I think I tried to pray, then. Or wished, I don’t know. I wanted it so much. But then they came, and they asked me”, he puts on a high pitched voice and a cockney accent, pulling a face, “Mr. Malfoy, sir, would you like to meet your son?”

“I wanted him to be a girl so bad, Harry. I didn’t want to be my father, but the only example I had was him raising a boy, raising me to be a _man_.” He spits the word with venom, hearing Lucius’ voice in his head. “A perfect pureblood little shit. I didn’t want that for my son and I thought the only way was if we had a girl. I had a name and everything. Mother’s favourite flower. I wanted a little daughter and I would protect her something fierce. Instead, Scorpius came into the world.”

Harry’s teacup has found the bedside table during his little monologue and his hand is now on top of Draco’s, his thumb drawing big soothing circles on the skin between Draco’s own thumb and index finger. Harry is looking at him when he finally looks up. 

“And you’re not your father,” he says, simply.

“No, I’m not. But it wasn’t easy.”

“Nothing ever is, darling.” Harry wraps his arms tight around him, and silence stretches. It wasn’t a planned confession, but it felt good to finally say it. It wasn’t something Draco had ever told anyone.

He isn’t sure how long it takes, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, and when Harry finally speaks again he does it in a whisper, as if he doesn’t know if Draco is still awake, his voice rough with emotion.

“Draco? Would you still want a daughter?”

The question floors him. In his mind he shoves Harry away and laughs. “Don’t be ridiculous, Potter,” says the him in his mind. But Draco does nothing of the sort. Draco snuggles up closer and whispers back.

“I think I would like that.”

He ought to say something else. _If we weren’t in our forties, Harry. If we’d started this earlier. If we weren’t us. What would the kids say, Harry? It is certainly a lovely hypothetical scenario to dream about. We’d have to put all of our career plans on hold for at least a couple of years. If it hasn’t escaped your attention, we both have cocks, Harry._

But instead, he lets himself be cuddled and when he falls asleep, he dreams of a little flower with gorgeous big green eyes, rosy chubby cheeks not quite as pale as his own and a mop of white blonde, curly hair.

It doesn’t really get brought up again for a while. Draco’s fine with it. Between schools and universities asking if he’d be a guest speaker next semester and renowned Transfiguration names asking for his opinion on their discoveries, he has enough to worry about.

He only really thinks about it when he looks at Scorpius. He doesn’t know what the biggest change has been: the fact that, somehow, at age 15, his son is now a couple of inches taller than him or that, perhaps due to Potter influence, he has lost some of his Malfoy anxiety and grown into a confident but kind young man. He likes to think _it is_ Potter influence but, even though Scorpius looks _exactly_ like he did at 15, he is 100% Greengrass in personality. His speech, his smile, his grace. It’s all Astoria. It breaks and mends his heart all at the same time: he misses Astoria, but she lives on in their son. 

The rest of the summer is quiet, easy. Ronald and Hermione are around a lot, and so is Ginny. In fact, Draco spends a lot of time with them, as if he’s Ginny’s ex-husband and not her ex-husband’s boyfriend. Harry is away during the day a lot, trying to figure out how one goes about opening a school from scratch. James is away a lot, too, with Teddy. It still gives Draco a nauseating sense of dread when he thinks of the two, of what he’s keeping from Harry and how (un)healthy the whole thing is.

September First is a big deal. Draco has never seen a bigger family on the platform in his entire life. There’s Bill and Fleur, sending Dominique and Louis off, Ginny and Harry with their three, Teddy, himself and Scorpius. There’s the Granger Weasleys, with Rose and Hugo, Percy and Audrey with Lucy, George and Angelina with Roxanne. And because that wasn’t enough, they’re joined by Luna and Rolf with the twins.

There is a lot of hugging. Harry cries a little when he hugs James goodbye and Draco holds his hand and squeezes it gently for which Harry gives him a grateful, if wet, smile. After being hugged by his mother and father and Teddy, James turns to Draco, who awkwardly says “we’ll see you at Christmas”. But James hugs him, then. “Make sure Dad doesn’t do anything stupid,” he says.

“I can’t really promise you that,” Draco says. _Easy, light, charming, trying very hard not to panic._

James looks over at Harry who’s saying goodbye to Rose. “We’re going to tell him before Christmas, I think, but I wanted to thank you. I really appreciate you not telling him,” he says, shuffling from foot to foot, running his hand through his hair. _So much_ like his dad.

“No worries. Do tell him, though. Sooner rather than later?” It’s not advice. It’s a request, and he knows James takes it as such.

“We will. See you later, Draco.”

Harry Potter and his kids are going to be the reason he dies, one day. He’s sure.

The adults retreat to the Burrow after for a well deserved September First pissup where Harry is mercilessly made fun of for crying at sending his eldest to Hogwarts for his final year. 

It’s all fun and games until Bill says, after a casual sip of Firewhiskey, “You can always have more, Harry. Keep filling the Hogwarts halls with Potter babies. Don’t stop until you have at least one in each house!”

“You’re technically only missing a Ravenclaw, now!” encourages Ron, like this is a conversation they should actually be having. “What do you say, Malfoy?”

What. the. Fuck.

And Harry, bless him and his big mouth, just drops a “We were thinking about it, actually,” which causes absolute silence for five seconds before the room explodes into excited shouts. By early afternoon, Draco and Harry are stuck listening to Hermione, Fleur and Audrey’s rather animated discussion about male pregnancy versus adoption versus surrogacy and the wonders of modern Healing techniques. 

In the end, it is Audrey that finds them a surrogate. Her name is Olivia, she has a clean bill of health and lovely, long, brown hair that reminds Draco of Astoria a little. They spend a long few weeks having meetings and making legal arrangements, and going to healer’s appointments, and wanking into awful tiny cups so there’s plenty of sperm to be tested for _viability_. 

“Are you sure?” He asks Harry for the twelfth day in a row, this time in the café at St. Mungo’s. 

“Very. Are you?”

He’s told Harry he is, of course he is. They’re not getting any younger and Merlin knows the middle of the night feeds are going to be hellish as it is.

“Yes. Harry, I just don’t want you to feel like we’ve rushed into things.”

“We’ve always rushed into things. I don’t see why we wouldn’t with this,” he explains, with a shrug.

“This concerns more than you and me, Potter.” he hisses, looking around to make sure they’re not making a scene publicly.

“No. It concerns a child who, no matter what happens in the future, will have a home, a family, and will be loved and cared for. I don’t see what the issue is.”

They manage to have this conversation again a good five times before they make final arrangements with their healer and surrogate.

Finally, by mid November, they get an owl from St. Mungo’s requesting their presence the following week for their first scan. The day before the appointment, Draco comes home after going for tea with his Mother and casually leaves the old copy of “Astronomy Inspired Baby Names” on the table. Harry bursts out laughing when he sees it and runs to the bedroom, bringing down a different book. He passes it to Draco with a dopey smile. 

“Flower and Tree Names for Your Baby,” Draco reads out loud from the colourful cover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to repeat myself, but I'll see you all again on Friday for, technically, the last chapter. And then, the Epilogue on Sunday 😭 Thank you for all the love, it means a lot!


	15. Godric's Hollow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is, technically, the end of the road. Sunday will bring the Epilogue that will hopefully answer all your questions and wrap everything nicely in a big bright bow for you — it is Christmas, after all. But, until then, here's the last chapter.

“Draco,” Harry starts, in a very firm voice. “How often did you cast a Protego on Scorpius when he was a baby?”

Draco doesn’t even look at Harry. He’s lying on the sofa, in front of the fire, under a blanket. He’s got a book, and Angus is snuggled between his knees, under the blanket. Why is Harry even disturbing his peace?

“What makes you think I ever did?” he asks slowly, placing his book, still open, on his chest.

“Draco.” Harry says, again. It’s a warning timbre now. He _is_ _serious_.

“I don’t know. Not that often.” It’s a lie, of course. _All the time_ would be more like it. He would have kept Scorpius wrapped in a protective charm every hour of every day for the rest of his son’s life, if Astoria hadn’t stopped him from doing so.

“Darling, do you think I haven’t seen you cast one on the pup, every day? And I mean, several times a day?” Draco has learnt, after dating him for over a year, that the main thing he had been wrong about Harry Potter in the past is that, it turns out, Harry is not that oblivious. He’s actually very, very observant. 

It is really quite annoying.

“Okay, yeah. I… just don’t want him to get hurt.”

“We’re going to have to work on that sometime before June. And that’s if we make it to the due date. I’m not convinced Potter-Malfoy genes will be very good at the whole ‘arriving when they’re meant to’ thing.”

He can work with that. That’s six months. Six months is plenty of time. Magical medicine has developed enough that Harry and Draco can have a baby with both their genes and Draco isn’t about to blow it by being a panicked mess. They’ve got a nursery to put together, twelve books to read and, apparently, Draco needs to control his overprotective nature a little better. That’s fine. He can do that. _Easy. Not a problem, at all._

They still haven’t told the children, either. Draco isn’t sure how he feels about that. He desperately wants to tell Scorpius. He had sworn, after his graduation, he would never lie to Scorpius again. Not that this was exactly _lying_ , but he didn’t feel particularly great about keeping something _this big_ from his son.

“Okay. Put that on the list,” he tells Harry, with a resigned sigh.

Harry and himself are going through some weird phase. Itching for something. He tries to think it’s just baby excitement. Draco wasn’t massively involved in Astoria’s pregnancy. In fact, he had been a bit of a dick all through it. Harry had, by the looks of it, been more involved in Ginevra’s pregnancies than Ginevra herself. So, Draco tries not to worry. Harry is practically dying to get his school plans going, but has taken a bit of a step back as they wait for their due date. For Draco, it was probably the fact that the validation of being constantly _wanted_ for his expertise and genius was wonderful, but it didn’t quite make up for the lack of a firm schedule. They were going through a weird phase. That was all. 

Draco has a lot of time to think, these days. It is not necessarily a good thing. They see Olivia once a week. She’s starting to look plump now. Harry comes home after their meetings and sighs, continuously, for a good hour. By the second week of December, Draco finally asks what’s wrong and Harry breaks. “It’s kind of weird. She’s wonderful, and I know they’re our babies, but they’re growing inside her, and I’m kind of jealous? I know we spoke about it, it’s not that I want to carry the babies, it’s more like… she’s a lovely girl, but I desperately want to kiss her bump and that’s just odd.”

And well, if Draco thought he couldn’t love Harry any more than he already does, he’s proven wrong right there and then.

Draco finds himself thinking of Astoria, a lot. Not that that isn’t the norm, anyway. He thinks about how they only really formed a bond after Scorpius was born. That she was growing his baby inside her and he didn’t even give her the time of day. But he also thinks of how pleased Astoria would be that he’s having a baby with Harry Potter, of all people. A half Potter, half Malfoy. “ _The very essence of Antichrist, surely,” she would probably say._

He spends a lot of time with his Mother, when Harry is doing absolutely idiotic things that he’s convinced will be helpful when he’s a primary school teacher, like an origami workshop, or first aid training, or a pottery course. And, one afternoon, over a cup of tea and scones, his Mother says something that keeps nagging at him for days and he can’t let it go.

He decides he’ll bring it up with Harry casually, at lunch, or over coffee, or something natural, like that.

So, obviously, he blurts it out after sex.

Draco gets a little giddy after sex. Not that he would ever admit it out loud. But he can never shake the feeling of pure happiness he feels after sex with Harry - someone he loves. It’s not something he’d ever thought he would experience once he married Astoria. Sex was a dirty thing he experienced with strangers in clubs and, on the rare occasion, his little flat, glamoured to look like a bachelor pad rather than the sad flat of a widower with a child to look after. Thirteen year old Draco had dreamt of it, of course. Marrying someone he loves and all that tripe.

The cleaning charm has barely hit him when he says “Do you ever think about marrying again?” without really meaning to. He immediately expects Harry to startle, but he doesn’t. 

He receives a shy smile instead. “Are you proposing, Malfoy?”

“I am not. Not right now. But I think I’d like to.” _Not right now._

“What if I want to propose to you?”

“No way.”

Draco remembers his wedding to Astoria. He loves her, still; he hates thinking “I loved her” just because she’s no longer around. He loves her, but he didn’t then. They were barely friends at that point. He had hated every second of their wedding day. He’d worn the old Malfoy robes, as worn by his father and his grandfather before him - his mother had done his hair (still long, at the time) in a long plait down his back so that every time he caught a glance of his reflection he saw his own father. He remembered how vile he felt making promises based on romantic love he knew he’d never feel for Astoria, remembered his Mother and the Greengrasses around them all the time, suffocating. The small talk, the standardised vows, the champagne roses that the Greengrasses had picked looking as sad and limp as he felt under the August sun.

He tells Harry about it. He goes on, and on, quietly: about how he always wanted to plan a romantic proposal (you don’t get to propose when you’ve been betrothed since before you could walk), how he’d always wanted a small intimate wedding, the freedom to do it the way he wants it, to wear whatever he decides. To pick the flowers, the robes, what he does with his hair, what he eats, what he can and can’t say. And most of all, that it would feel true. 

He isn’t expecting Harry to have anything to say. After all, he’d seen the pictures of his fairytale wedding on the Weasley’s massive lawn. A civil ceremony presided by none other than the Minister for Magic. Ginny in a tight fitting mermaid gown, Harry in black robes. 

Harry listens but he does tell him about his own wedding, in the end. He realises then that he should have known that fairytales always have grim stories behind them.

Harry had hated that the press had to be present, all he’d wanted was to run away - not because he didn’t love Ginny but because he didn’t want it to be the big performative farce it ended up being. He’d looked at his own parents’ wedding pictures (the two he had) every day the few weeks before the wedding: imagined himself in the chapel in Godric’s Hollow, the love of his life walking down the aisle towards him. Alas, it wasn't meant to be that way. He had a happy marriage to his best friend, he’d confessed. “In the end, it was like I’d married Ron or Hermione, but with much better se-“

“Ew. Shut your gross mouth, scarhead.”

He doesn’t mean for it to happen, but a plan formulates almost immediately. He doesn’t want any formalities with Harry. Despite their past, despite being who they are, Harry and Draco are easy. Things feel natural. He doesn’t want to rush it, if Harry doesn’t. But he’s never been a patient man once an idea comes to him.

Two days later, Draco and Harry have a quiet dinner at home. Draco had Apparated to Sheffield in a last minute decision and grabbed Harry’s favourites from _India_. He thought he may as well tell the Chowdhrys, while he was there, so he casually says “I’m proposing to Harry on Friday,” and Mahika gives him extra food, hugs him so tight it pops his back and refuses payment with a bright smile and tears in her eyes.

He’s tempted to tell the Weasleys. Or at least Ginny. Maybe Ron and Hermione. He should definitely tell at least Pansy, if not Blaise, too. He’ll never hear the end of it. But he doesn’t tell anyone else. The whole idea is that it is to be simple, he reminds himself.

In the end, he doesn’t wait until Friday. He’s too fidgety over dinner. Harry asks if he’s okay three times. Draco keeps thinking of when he was at the jewellers earlier, if he’d picked the right thing. He’d been out-of-his-mind nervous, looking at flashy bright diamonds and things that had nothing to do with Harry. It took a while and a lot of asking the right questions but Draco had found something that was Harry through and through. A thick gold and tungsten band with a small solitaire emerald tension set in an off centre gap. 

He’d made sure there was a matching wedding band they’d both wear to go with it: a thin version of the engagement ring made of a stripe of bright gold and a stripe of black brushed tungsten that would sit on top of Harry’s engagement ring immaculately. He’d purchased the three rings on the spot and hid the boxes in his sock drawer.

He drops a tumbler into the sink after dinner, smashing not only the glass but also the dinnerplate it falls on. “Darling, are you sure you’re okay?” Harry asks, clearly worried now.

_Fuck it._

“Wait here,” he says to Harry and runs upstairs. _How fucking romantic._

He has no idea what the hell he’s doing now, really, but he hastily grabs the two boxes and runs back downstairs. _In for a knut, in for a galleon._ Harry is watching him curiously from the kitchen table. Kitchen? Is this really where he wants to do it?

But then he thinks of Harry, in the pub that day, a table between them. He thinks of Harry in his flat, on their first date, a table between them. Thinks of Harry in India, a table between them. Thinks of how they almost first had sex on Harry’s kitchen table. About how they’d told the kids they were dating around the kitchen table. And how they hadn’t really brought much furniture with them from either of their flats when they moved, but both had agreed that Harry’s kitchen table was to stay.

_Okay. It’s just Harry. You can do this._

“Hey,” he says, arms behind his back, a ring box in each hand.

“Did you buy a weird sex thing again?” Harry asks.

_Salazar._

Draco places both boxes on the table in front of Harry and whispers a quick “Aberto” so they pop open. Harry’s mouth is wide open, and so are his eyes behind his big round glasses. He doesn’t have a great speech, but he reckons he should probably say something. _Will you marry me? No, not that. Do you want to get married? Not that either._

So he says: “What do you think?”

“Really?”

“Really. If you want, that is.”

Harry doesn’t say yes but pulls him down into a tight hug instead. After a long stretch of squeezing each other tenderly, Harry breaks into a smile and says, “We’re going to have babies and get married! I am marrying _Draco Malfoy_. The universe is bonkers.”

“Are you marrying Draco Malfoy, though? You’ve not said yes,” he laughs.

“You’re not taking this back now, darling.” Harry grabs the engagement ring and puts it on himself. “We are actually doing this, then?”

“I think we are.”

“Tomorrow?” Harry says the word very slowly, in a strange accent, almost like he’s licking the word, testing it for how it feels in his mouth.

“What do you mean tomorrow?” Draco practically squawks. 

“To get married?” _Fucking hell, Harry is out to kill him._

“WHAT!?”

“Well, we should probably do it before the babies are here. And we may as well just have one big announcement at Christmas, instead of two?”

_Holy shit._

They stay up very late ironing out details. It takes Harry 45 minutes to finally accept that less than twelve hours isn’t enough to plan a wedding. He realises barging into the Ministry to get married will definitely end up in the papers. It’s been pitch black for hours when they finally go to sleep.

“I can’t believe you proposed,” Harry whispers into the darkness of the bedroom.

Draco pulls him close into his own body. “I can’t believe you thought we’d be getting married tomorrow, you idiot.”

He obviously didn’t know it when he was looking at rings, or getting takeaway, or worrying about how to actually do it, but it turns out an engagement short enough you can count every day you were engaged using the fingers on one hand is all he ever wanted. 

They get their suits the next day. Harry’s putting his jumper on before they leave the house when he asks Draco “I don’t have to wear robes, do I?” and Draco explains they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to. It’s their wedding.

Draco finds something so perfect he wants to scream (and very nearly does). Black trousers and a white shirt, with a long white cape that attaches to the shoulders on the shirt and has a gorgeous intricate gold pattern on the back and around the hem. 

Harry is very keen on a tartan suit because it’s “winter-y and christmas-sy” and Draco is about to have a nosebleed when Harry finds an emerald green velvet suit and says, “What about this then?”

Draco isn’t one to complain about the price of high quality tailoring, but the amount of Galleons he leaves in Diagon Alley that morning just to make sure they can get the suits altered by the end of the day is absurd, even for him. He’s just glad they can find muggle-style suits in Diagon Alley these days. He’s not wearing robes this time for all the gold in the world.

By Wednesday morning, they have made incredible progress, considering they’ve been engaged for less than two days. Draco’s sat on the deck outside, warming charms aplenty around him, watching Angus run around in the grass, when Harry comes out to join him and says, “I was thinking… I read a while ago about how the captain of a ship can marry people. I mean, it was in a book about pirates so who knows? But do you think there is anything like that in the wizarding world?”

And Harry hasn’t even finished his sentence when Draco leaps to his feet and runs into the house. He grabs a pen and piece of parchment and writes a quick note - polite but to the point - and says “I think I’ve got it! I’m just going into town to post this, do you need anything?” Harry is looking a little baffled but shakes his head so Draco is gone and back in less than 15 minutes.

Harry is in the nursery charming a changing table together when he gets back. “Are you going to tell me, then?”

“McGonagall. She can marry us, I think! The Headmaster or Headmistress of Hogwarts can, to be precise. Since the beginning of time. My only concern is that I’m not sure if we have to get married on Hogwarts grounds, but I’ve asked if she will meet with us, so I’m sure we’ll find out, sooner or later.”

He sees it cross Harry’s eyes, very briefly, when he mentions getting married at Hogwarts. The same fear that had bitten Draco’s heart when he thought of it. He isn’t sure how he feels about Hogwarts. “Let’s just see what she says,” he emphasises, soothing both his fear and Harry’s.

It’s a surprise to find out he feels… pretty good about Hogwarts. He Apparates just outside the gates and is let in by Filch ( _how is that man still alive_ ), who gives him a nasty scowl. He hopes with all his might that Harry sees his phone soon, or gets home and finds his note and has time to Floo into the meeting, because asking Minerva McGonagall to marry the two of them without Harry there is a daunting prospect.

But, of course, Harry is too busy learning how to make _papier mâché_ figurines or how to cut shaped paper garlands or how to make bunting out of empty cans and bottle lids. Some nonsense like that. 

“Doctor Malfoy.” She greets him from the bottom of the stairs of what Draco had been in once before when it was Dumbledore’s office, and a couple of times when it was Severus’. 

“Please, Headmistress. Draco will do, really. But Mr. Malfoy is absolutely fine, if you wish.”

“Congratulations on taking the world of Transfiguration by storm. Someone had to,” she says, and gives him a warm smile. “Is Mr. Potter not joining us?”

“Harry has got a project, at the moment. I’m hoping he’ll manage to join us in a little while.”

“Well, let’s get upstairs, have some tea and a biscuit. In fact, Mr. Malfoy, there was something I wanted to pick your brain about. And a proposal, of sorts.”

He’s surprised to find that not only Hogwarts still feels like _home,_ but McGonagall is not as scary as he remembers. She’s really quite brilliant. The Headmistress’ office is a sight to behold and he only jumps a little when he hears Severus’ voice. Dumbledore seems remarkably unsurprised that Draco is at Hogwarts to request Minerva McGonagall’s assistance to marry Harry Potter in secret. Severus, on the other hand, looks like a vial of Calming Draught would do him wonders.

Harry doesn’t show up, so he has to swallow his nerves and explain the whole situation to a surprised but willing to help McGonagall. Ultimately, as if the whole situation wasn’t unexpected enough, it’s none other than the Headmistress of Hogwarts herself who makes most of the final arrangements for their wedding, after Draco has promised to consider her proposal, if she considers his. 

When Friday morning comes, it does so with a light dusting of snow and a dark sky. _A white wedding,_ he thinks, when he looks outside. Harry had been up in the middle of the night. He’d been dreaming. Draco woke up to a dark room and Harry’s body twitching against his, brows furrowed, quiet soft mewls leaving his lips. Draco knew not to shake him awake at this point, so he strokes his arms, softly, and his chest. Upwards and downwards motions. He kisses his cheeks and his nose until Harry’s eyes fly open. “Tea?” Draco asks. 

“No, thank you.” Harry gets out of bed, goes into the bathroom for a while, and comes back a little later to plaster his freezing cold body against Draco. Draco allows Harry to get comfortable against him, his head against Draco’s chest, his right leg thrown over Draco’s, and when Harry stops fidgeting, he pulls him in just the tiniest little bit closer and holds onto him tight.

Harry’s already up when Draco wakes up again. He can smell cake all the way from the bedroom. He tiptoes down the stairs to find Harry surrounded by more food than ever, and that is saying something.

“I thought I’d make us a wedding cake,” he smiles at Draco, eyes crinkling. “Bottom’s a hazelnut chocolate, the middle is gingerbread and whiskey and the top is a lemon lavender,” he explains as he points at the different sized cakes, not piled on top of one another yet.

“Harry.” He breathes out, because he doesn’t know what else to say. The wave of emotions is so sudden, so deep. In a short few hours, he’ll be Harry Potter’s husband. And how the fuck did that happen?

But Harry steps closer and kisses him. “Second thoughts?”

“No. You?”

“Absolutely not. We’ve gone through so much shit in this life, darling. Getting married to you is hardly scary,” Harry says and kisses him again.

“Ha. Ha. You are funny, Potter,” he strikes back, the tone of sarcasm a clear parody of his younger self. “Now, do I have to eat cake for breakfast on my wedding day or will my betrothed be providing anything more substantial?”

He eats cake for breakfast.

They’re meeting McGonagall at three, so they have plenty of time. They share a bath, their peace only disturbed by Angus occasionally barking from the bathmat for treats. Draco does Harry’s hair when Harry asks, sheepishly. Thin plaits on both sides of his head meeting in a low bun at the nape of his neck.

They help each other dress. Draco ties Harry’s black tie with expertise, Harry clips Draco’s cape onto his shirt with ease. 

_“You look amazing,”_ they both say at the same time, and laugh.

“You got the rings?” “Mhmmm.” “Let’s go then.”

Godric’s Hollow is almost eerie, in a way only a small village can be. Across from the church they can see the cottage Harry lost both his parents in, all those decades ago, and the statue of The Potters right in the middle of the square shining around the edges with its concealment charm. He looks and Harry does too, and Draco squeezes his hand.

Minerva McGonagall is in the courtyard already, the doors to the church wide open. She takes one look at him and smiles. “Mr. Malfoy, you are practically glowing. If I knew the remedy to your sourness was marrying Harry, I would have bonded you right there on your first Start-of-Term Feast.” 

He looks at Harry, baffled, only to find an expression he suspects matches his own on Harry’s face. McGonagall was joking! _Joking!_

They huddle around Harry’s strong warming charm for last minute questions and preparations. Draco’s heart is thumping in his chest madly as he holds Harry’s hand. Harry, who’s about to become his husband. Harry kisses his face and says “well, I’ll see you in there in a minute, yeah?” with a tilt of his head towards the church as he says it.

Harry and McGonagall enter the church and Draco has a quiet moment for himself. He hopes the church is exactly what Harry wanted it to be, what he’d wanted all those years ago. He hopes Scorpius forgives him for this. And Mother. And Pansy. And Harry’s family. _God._ He pats his left trouser pocket, making sure Harry’s wedding present is still there, and then the right, where he’s got Harry’s ring. He’s dawdling and he knows it. 

_“You could be happy if you just allowed yourself, you know?”_ he hears her. Astoria’s voice. Clear as day. He sticks his hand in his left pocket again and whispers a _thank you_ into the night before walking towards the entrance of the church.

It’s solemn. It’s quiet, and somehow, it makes sense. Harry had asked him “are you sure you don’t want to just cast a Sonorus on your phone? I’ll let you play Elton John”, but with his first step, he knew he’d made the right decision. 

It’s solemn, but peaceful. The complete opposite of the very few times Draco had stepped into a church before in his life. The quiet fills him with nervous, joyful energy.

He walks slowly towards Harry, eyes on him. He knows McGonagall is there, too, a couple of steps behind Harry, but she melts into the background, just like the rest of the church.

Harry is looking at him and... crying, he realises. Openly. Big, fat tears dropping down to his chin and from his chin onto his suit jacket. Draco thought maybe he’d cry too, but he finds that he can’t help but smile. 

He stops in front of Harry, who beams at him through tears. _This is it. Gods, this is it. He’s about to be bonded to Harry Potter._

It’s a short thing, not a silly performance for guests. McGonagall conjures a number of long pieces of fabric and he realises she’s bonding them old school style - a Celtic handbiding. She says the necessary words, both for it to be legally binding and for magic to bond them _for life._ She drapes the strands of fabric, different colours and patterns, over their hands as she says the spell. She pulls the six strands up and over themselves on Harry and Draco’s hands and ties the knot. With the knot secured over their joint hands, she raises her wand and says the final words, although the Latin is definitely an updated version that Draco only half recognises.

“Draco, your vows.” He thinks with utmost certainty that Minerva McGonagall has never used just his first name before. It’s strange, but not unwelcome. He may have to get used to that.

Draco’s vows are short. Not that he’s rehearsed. He speaks from the heart, because that’s how Harry sees him. The only person who’s ever seen him like that. Unprepared but willing to try. Draco’s vows are a promise. 

Harry’s vows are long. Mostly because Draco’s crying, and Harry is trying not to and has to stop a lot. Harry’s vows are a story.

A promise and a story of two men whose fate kept throwing together in the most unlikely way. A promise and a story that wouldn’t have worked unless they wanted it to. And they do, _so much._

“Please seal the bonding with a kiss.”

Harry may as well jump with how quickly he reacts. 

McGonagall kisses them both on the cheek once they’re done. Only his Mother and Molly Weasley have kissed him in such a way before. They move out into the courtyard and she conjures sparkly white confetti that showers them as they walk out.

“Nice touch, Headmistress. If you ever retire, you could give wedding planning a go,” Harry says, not letting go of Draco’s hand. 

“Harry.” She smiles, as she says Harry's name and faces the couple. “I wouldn’t plan a wedding just for anyone, you should know that.”

That, judging by the heat on his face, gives Draco and Harry matching blushing cheeks. 

“Boys.”

And if that doesn’t feel like being 11 and being told off by your Transfiguration professor. Harry stiffens next to him.

“I’ve only been to one wedding at St. Jerome’s before. One that I, as a professor that had taught both bride and groom, would have judged unlikely based on the couples’ interactions in the first 6 years of their education. You know exactly who I’m talking about.” Harry nods, next to him. Draco is sweating in the snow covered churchyard. “It took you two a little longer to work things out, but I can see you both do each other a whole world of good.”

She tells them she’ll sort the paperwork and Disapparates, offering her Floo if they want to tell the kids before Christmas break.

They visit Lily and James Potter’s grave before they Apparate away. Harry speaks in a hushed voice, introduces Draco as “his husband,” which gives Draco a jolt of pleasure like he’d never felt before. Harry kisses him soundly in the dark, snow-covered cemetery before they Apparate home.

They’re rewarded with plenty of loud yapping and licks as soon as they arrive back home. Angus is clearly not used to both of them being away for long periods of time. 

Harry kneels and picks the dog up, saying, “Hey, buddy. Guess what? Your dads are married now.” 

Harry lights candles all over the house, dims the lights. It’s better than any honeymoon suite Draco could ever think of. _It’s theirs._

Draco pops open the champagne and they cut the cake. They sit outside for the longest time, eating cake and drinking champagne in comfortable silence. It’s freezing cold but blankets and Harry’s warming charms help. 

The Chapel continues to reveal itself as one of Draco’s greatest decisions ever, he muses, as he looks at the dark Scottish sky, the green trees poking out of the snow, the wind softly trilling through the air.

“Hey,” Harry starts, after a while. “I know you’re a genius and have figured out people can have numerous Animagus forms, but you never told me what your Patronus is.”

Draco smiles at him and pulls his wand out. With the memory of the strands of fabric around their hands fresh in his mind, it takes mere seconds for the Thestral to come galloping happily out of his wand. Draco studies Harry’s reaction carefully, but he’s not sure what to make of Harry’s bright eyes. He gets it when Harry waves his hand - a wandless Patronus? Really? That’s just taking the piss now - and a Thestral comes out of the wispy white-blue light. _Oh._

 _“Since when?”_ he asks, sounding borderline hysterical. Harry’s laugh is soft and sweet and melts his heart. 

“A couple days after I took you to Sheffield for the first time. All I wanted was to send Hermione a quick message and it had me fall right on my arse with shock. I wondered if it was yours, too.”

_A year. A whole year Harry had known his Patronus had changed._

“Oh, Harry,” he says, for lack of better words to express himself, and snuggles closer to Harry.

“Presents now?” Harry asks, lips against Draco’s temple. “I’ll go first,” he replies, happily. 

He’s afraid the bonding has actually put a little bit of Harry’s bravery in him as he reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out the silver pin he’s seen and touched so many times now. He hadn’t thought to wrap it in tissue paper or put it in a little pouch, which he regrets now, but he passes it to Harry, who grabs it carefully and inspects it.

“It was Astoria’s. She wore it on her hair on our wedding day. I almost gave it to you this morning, I thought you’d just put your hair up in one of your messy buns.” Harry looks him in the eyes for a second then goes back to inspecting the silver sunflower on the top of the forked hairpin. “She loved it very much and wore it a lot when Scorpius was little. She said it was lucky.”

Harry grabs his wand out without a word, an inscrutable look on his face and waves it around his own head for a second. His hair falls out of his bun and the thin plaits Draco had put so much work into start undoing themselves until Harry’s hair is free. Then, in one practiced movement, Harry grabs all his hair into a high ponytail and twists it into a messy bun, securing it with Astoria’s pin.

“Thank you for letting me have it.”

Draco knows there’s more Harry is saying with those words. _Thank you for sharing her with me. Thank you for making space in your heart next to her._ One of the many reasons he trusts Harry is that Harry knows Astoria isn’t going anywhere. Astoria will be Draco’s forever.

Then Harry reaches into his own pocket and whatever he’s gotten Draco is just as small as Astoria’s hairpin. 

He has a very grave mood about him suddenly. Like he hasn’t in a long time. It makes Draco’s skin feel cold. 

“Right. So.” He’s steeling himself, Draco realises. Nervous. Scared. “I almost gave you this at Christmas last year. And then for Valentine’s. And then again on your birthday. It never felt right. I still don’t know if it’s righ-

“Harry. Don’t overthink.”

A self-deprecating laugh leaves Harry’s mouth. He looks like he didn’t mean for it to happen. Draco isn’t sure he wants to know what can make Harry feel this way. But he did just give his new husband something that belonged to his dead wife, so… no fears. Head first. Gryffindor style. 

Harry seems to be thinking the same as he pulls his hand out of his pocket and tells him, “Yeah, okay. Open your hand.”

Draco opens his hand in front of Harry, like a small child waiting for a sweet, and takes a step closer. Harry lets a small, oddly shaped black stone fall into it.

“How much do you know about the Deathly Hallows?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yell at me, go on. I know you want to. It's fine. (I'm sorry to leave you like this, it's only two days until the epilogue goes up, don't hate me!!)
> 
> edit: Draco's wedding outfit is actually based on a vintage wedding dress I tried on for my own wedding that, sadly, didn't fit quite as I wanted it to! I did find [this beautiful piece of art by one of the fandom's most loved artists](https://junk-ren.tumblr.com/post/613764381252190208/a-name-from-the-stars) a few weeks after I wrote this chapter, and it has pretty similar vibes minus the cape! Harry is wearing something [like this](https://www.samuel-windsor.co.uk/jackets/velvet-jackets/velvet-jacket-emerald/BVJ8W07EM) but the trousers are green too!
> 
> i can only find rubbish pictures online but i know not everyone is a jewellery connoisseur so [this is the closes i can find to what the wedding bands would look like](http://weddbook.com/media/2938090/gold-ring-set-rose-gold-rings-black-gold-rings-titanium-wedding-rings-titanium-rings-tungsten-gold-rings-wedding-ring-set-anvil-rings) except Harry and Draco's are in yellow gold! and Harry's engagement ring has a tension set emerald in it, which would look something [like this](https://www.titaniumrings.com/collections/mens-gems/products/abyss-black-tension). Just imagine something in those styles, but like... a little nicer :)


	16. Five Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaah. It's finally here. The longest piece of fic I have ever written!
> 
> It's been a pleasure getting to post a story this dear and close to my heart and get so much lovely feedback for it. I never expect people to actually follow WIPs, so it's a complete understatement to say I was surprised to discover a good handful of people were in for the full ride. It very much is the end of the line for Harry and Draco here, but I may be cooking up a couple of things from the same universe because my brain, apparently, does not recognise the concept of "resting". 
> 
> I can only say thank you (even though that seems small) and hope that this little epilogue gives you the answers to the questions you have.

Harry has been pacing around the room for at least 45 minutes when he finally spots the dark robed figure he can only assume is Draco coming out of the Castle through the front door and walking down the path.

He does this a lot, these days. Pacing, wondering - perhaps overthinking is a side effect of being married to Draco Malfoy. Not that he’d trade the past five years of his life for anything. Maybe it’s not so much a side effect of being married to Draco as much as it is a side effect of peace and contentment. 

His thoughts divert for a second and he’s back in Godric’s Hollow, hand clasped tightly around Draco’s, shivering under Minerva’s glare and the weight of her words. 

_“I’ve only been to one wedding at St. Jerome’s before. One that I, as a professor that had taught both bride and groom, would have judged unlikely based on the couples’ interactions in the first 6 years of their education. You know exactly who I’m talking about.”_

He remembers how his heart had swollen in his chest right there and then, almost painfully. How he’d heard a different voice in his mind, clear as day. _“How come she married him? She hated him!” “Nah, she didn’t.”_

He shakes his head as if that will clear the thought away. Their wood wedding anniversary was two days ago, not that they did much for it, being a school night, but it’s not about that today. Today is, hopefully, all about Draco and the news he brings from the castle.

 _Peace and contentment,_ he repeats in his head. _Peace and contentment._ Fact is, when you’re not having to jump straight into action, you have more time to (over)analyse things. Harry’s internal monologue is very different from what it used to be. The one thing that remains from the days of the War is the _conflict between the part of him that can feel hopeless and lost and the part of him that is constantly marveling at how he’s made it out alive._

It’s a crisp, snowy December day. Draco has got his _night sky blue_ professor robes tightly wrapped around him, his hair loose around his face - Harry loves it like that. He can’t see far but he knows he’s already got that muted redness on the very high of his cheeks, the part that almost touches his eyes when he smiles, from the bitter cold. Harry wants to kiss him. Desperately. But Draco isn’t in a rush, he never is (or never shows it, Harry corrects himself). He walks, gloved hands just peeking out from under his robes, head high, eyes on Little Hogwarts. 

Draco still hates the name. “You named the kids, I get to name my school,” Harry had shouted, on a blistering hot summer’s day, three years ago. 

“First, how fucking dare you compare our babies to _your_ school and second, _you_ said _I_ should name the twins because you have a tendency to name children after people and that hasn’t always worked out in your favour,” and Harry couldn’t have argued with that if he wanted to. 

Harry looks under his feet at the floorboards of the main playroom, thinking of what he knows is somewhere underneath. They had buried Draco’s wedding present under the school before it was built. He had never used it. 

“Astoria is where she should be, Harry. You and I have had enough dealing with the rotten and the dead for a number of lifetimes,” he had said as he placed the Stone in the little box. It wasn’t planned but just before Draco closed it, Harry felt the urge to pluck the beautiful sunflower hairpin out of his hair and put it snuggly against the stone in the little box. And so, Astoria Greengrass’ wedding pin and the Resurrection Stone live in a silver snuff box under the first stone that was ever laid for Hogwarts' very own nursery and primary school. 

Harry thinks of them often. _Buried treasure._ He thinks they complement each other. He thinks that the original owner of the pin, with all her tenderness and love, balances out the torment he knows the stone can bring. He likes knowing they’re there, under his feet, all day, five days a week. He thinks they’re _good luck._

Draco has learnt to keep his grief in check. Harry knows he still thinks of Astoria every day. He sees when it happens, now. He knows what the soft look on Draco’s face means, what his sad smile means. He’s never been jealous, not once. Maybe because Harry still loves Ginny dearly. He always has. 

It doesn’t hurt. Most things don’t, anymore, at least not actively. Everything is a dull ache, from Sirius’ memory to the scar tissue on his chest. Divorcing Ginny had been the hardest decision of his adult life. It had seemed cowardly, at the time. He understands now that things are just what they are. And while Ginny had loved him, and he had loved Ginny, they were the product of circumstance, good fortune, perhaps - like his friendship with Ron. 

And as much as he hated prophecies, he had to admit to himself that Draco _,_ against all odds, _was fate._

He’s never been jealous, because he thinks of Astoria often, too. They’d only known each other in passing, but he knows so much about her now, he wishes he’d made the effort to extend an olive branch to the Malfoys much earlier than he did. 

Draco knows this. In truth, Draco knows that Harry loves Ginny very much like Draco loved Astoria. On top of that, Harry has a feeling that Draco loves Ginny very, very dearly, too. And Ginny has become more of a fixture in their lives than she ever was in Harry’s life post-separation. It gives him a little kick, he can’t lie. Whenever he sees Draco and Ginny together, laughing. Whenever Draco is as comfortable with Ginny as he is with Pansy. It makes Harry's heart thump away madly in his chest.

He has a feeling whatever uncertainty or awkwardness that was still hanging in the air about their situation dissipated the night they somehow figured out all three of them had slept with Oliver Wood before. Among all the laughing, it surprised everyone (probably Ginny herself, if he’s being frank) that it wasn’t Draco, but Ginny who said “And I know for a fact Astoria would have loved to have a go, too, had she had the chance.” And Harry remembers going very still and looking over at Draco, in a panic, only for Draco to burst out laughing until he was crying. Ginny and Draco’s friendship might have been born out of practicality when Albus and Scorpius were 11, but the little devious partnership they have going on now? That had a baptism by fire, that very night. 

That night, in bed, Harry had wondered how different things would be if Astoria hadn’t died. If Ginny and himself were still in love. Would Albus and Scorpius being friends force them all into being friends? Would the four of them have dinner together? Would Astoria laugh at Harry’s jokes and go to Ginny’s games and kiss Draco? And would Harry never know? Would Harry never want to kiss Draco himself? Would Harry never want to touch him, to see him without his clothes on, to see him broken down, bare, open? Of course, he knows that’s pure conjecture. It’s Draco rubbing off on him. The way he panics and overthinks and makes lists in his head. It helps Harry, sometimes. When he goes off his hinges, he tries to see things through Draco’s eyes: neat and where they should be. He cracks the metaphorical grey cloud open and it comes undone, then he places things in their respective boxes. It helps. Draco helps.

He knows it works the other way round, too. Draco gets stuck in his own brain sometimes. Naming countries, naming birds, naming fruit trees, naming unproven physics theories, naming chemical elements, naming Transfiguration masters. Harry has learnt to poke him when it happens. Learnt that they can balance each other out. Sometimes he lets Draco destroy a couple of things in the shed, puts it back together after, puts Draco back together after. Sometimes they duel until they’re bloody, sometimes they fuck until they’re sore. It helps. 

Harry is still watching Draco, knowing exactly what Draco has to say when he finally reaches him, wondering how he will break the news. He never knows with Draco, still. Now that Draco is a little closer, he can tell he looks pleased. He looks happy, content. 

He lets his mind — and eyes — wander to the other side of the castle for a second, wondering what Angus is up to. He’s definitely grown into his magical abilities ever since the twins were born, and then even more after Harry started bringing him to the school and allowing him to shepherd children around. The cold never seems to bother the small crup, but Harry knows Draco will ask about him as soon as he realises he’s not in the school but out playing in the snow all by himself instead. Harry tries not to worry, Angus finds his way back most times. And when he doesn't, Hagrid usually finds him and brings him back if he dares go too far (or, on the one occasion, if he gets into Greenhouse One and starts destroying Neville’s beloved plants).

He looks at Draco again, getting closer and closer. Harry loves this little path himself, mourns the fact that he doesn't have enough excuses to go up to the Castle. He doesn’t really need one - his husband’s office should be enough of an excuse - but he doesn’t like overstepping. He’s grateful enough that Draco used his charm, or his cunning or whatever it was, to convince McGonagall to let Harry open a primary wizarding school on the grounds. Knowing Draco, he imagines it was very much a case of “I will gladly accept the position of Professor of Transfiguration, if you’ll allow my fiancé to make all his dreams come true. That is my only request.” He can’t imagine Minerva taking it very well, but Draco has a way with words. 

He envies how many times Draco gets to walk that little path. They Floo directly from The Chapel to Little Hogwarts every morning, and back every evening, each holding a twin by the hand. Draco walks up the path after a quick kiss to Harry’s lips, a quick kiss to Peony’s cheek, a quick kiss to Reggie’s forehead. He walks back down the path if he has a free period and no classes to plan or essays to grade, or if he has a long lunch. He walks back up for the rest of his classes. He walks down again at the end of the day to Floo home. 

Harry envies it because it reminds him of walking down to Hagrid’s hut, many moons ago. It’s both exactly the same, and the complete opposite. It works because it’s familiar but doesn’t hurt. Sometimes it still hurts seeing Hagrid’s hut itself, or the Quidditch stands, or the edge of the Forest. Mostly it hurts seeing The Great Hall. He doesn’t tell anyone, not even Draco, that it’s probably why he doesn’t go up to the Castle for meals as much, even though Minerva has said a million times that he is staff and there’s a spot for him. This side of the Castle feels a little safer, he isn’t sure why - destruction had really touched everything. But he likes walking the path that Draco is walking now: down the little slope, around the lake, up the little steps to the front door of _his school._

It isn’t really _his_ school, he has to remind himself often. It is part of Hogwarts, so they’re officially under McGonagall's strong grip. Soon to be Draco’s strong grip, but he’ll have to wait until Draco tells him that himself. He’s not meant to know, technically. For all he knows, Draco may have not accepted and Neville will become Headmaster instead. He chuckles to himself. Of course Draco didn’t say no. He feels pride swell up in his chest like a balloon on the verge of popping. Headmaster Potter-Malfoy. 

Oh, if a fourteen year old Harry Potter could see him now.

He has to admit he’s worried. He can’t say that the pacing and the wondering are completely uncalled for. Draco loves the life they have. He’s worked so hard to make life easier for all Hogwarts professors - rotating weekends, making sure people get Sundays off to spend with their family. Making sure there’s enough staff at the Castle overnight but that whoever wants to go home, gets to go home. It had meant that the twins got to grow up surrounded by people who loved them. By family. There was a fierce grandparenting competition still very much alive between the Weasleys, the Chowdhrys, and Narcissa Malfoy all by herself. 

Draco turning Hogwarts on its head by changing the curriculum and the way staff worked had also meant Harry wasn’t alone all weekend with seven children and a dog to look after, which he was immensely grateful for. It had meant that Harry and Draco could go for a few drinks at The White Swan and leave the babies under the watch of Teddy and James (which only happened once, considering they had gotten back to Teddy and James shut in James’ room and Scorpius looking after the twins while Albus and Lily slept on the sofa) or with Ron and Hermione. 

The point is, taking the job would drastically change Draco’s schedule. He probably had a list of reasons why he couldn’t take the post already prepared in his head. Either way, there’s no point speculating. He’ll know soon enough.

Harry forces his eyes away from Draco and back into the room. The twins are sitting on the rug, playing with the little wooden kitchen all the kids love. Well, Regulus is anyway. Stirring a plastic ladle in a plastic pot, throwing all manner of plastic ingredients into it: a tomato, a goldfish, a whole head of broccoli, a fried egg, a milk carton, a salt shaker. Well, he’s only four. He’s not meant to know milk cartons and salt shakers don’t go in soup. Peony, on the other hand, is “reading”. She does it a lot. “Like Papa,” she says. She sits on the floor, book open between her little legs and turns the pages, babbling about whatever she thinks is happening in the story based on the illustrations. 

It’s Reggie’s little squeal that alerts him to the bright leopard Patronus that comes leaping through the far wall. “Al!” Says Peony. Albus’ Patronus, in a very Albus way, goes straight to the point. “Dad! You need to find a way to get better phone service at Little Hogs or I’m going to lose my mind. I’m guessing that’s where you are? Send me a Patronus back if I can come over.”

 _Draco is gonna hate this_ , he thinks, and without a second thought he sends a Patronus back “Yeah, we’re at the school, Floo over.”

He looks back out at the snowy grounds. Draco won’t take two minutes to come through the door. But it doesn’t take two minutes for Albus to come out of the Floo, followed by Scorpius, who’s followed by Teddy, who’s followed by James, who’s followed by Lily. The twins are both on their feet within seconds, running to their siblings, pulling on sleeves to be picked up and fussed over. Lily is still brushing soot off her coat when Draco walks through the door. 

“What the fuck!?” He whispers, but everyone picks up on it. Including Peony, perched on Teddy’s shoulders, who looks straight at Harry with an expression that is 100% Malfoy and says, “Papa said fuck.” Everyone laughs. Draco clears his throat and says, the same expression their little girl just had on her own face slapped on his:

“Potter, may I have a word with you in the year one classroom?”

Scorpius cackles. “Oooooh, Potter! Harry’s in trouble!” He practically sings it, the bastard.

Having children, Harry discovered long ago, is a love-hate relationship. Luckily, _he’s very good at those_. He follows Draco into the classroom and closes the door. Draco turns to look at him and says, calmly, quietly: “You knew.”

Harry hates calm Draco, because he’s unreadable. He could be ecstatic, he could be furious. Fuck if Harry knows which one it is. Harry nods.

“And you didn’t tell me,” he accuses. “Shit, Harry. Do the kids know!?”

Ah. The talking very quickly. This, he knows. It’s panic.

“No. I’m not really sure why they’re here, they all just got here too.”

“Right,” Draco says. As if that’s the end of the conversation.

“Sooooooo…?” He elongates the word as far as his breath will allow him. 

Draco gives him an exasperated look. Finally. He can work with that. Then sighs, deep and long, like he’s been holding it in forever. 

“I will be the Headmaster of Hogwarts come September,” Draco finally says and _beams._ It is a real, full, toothy smile. His eyes are shining a little with unshed tears and Harry realises he’s a little emotional, himself. 

“Get in here, darling,” he says, arms open wide. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispers into Draco’s chest. “You’re going to be amazing.”

They hug for the longest time, no words needed. He feels his heart beat steadily in his chest and he knows Draco listens. 

_I knew you had such big things in you. The world hasn’t even seen how good you are yet. I love you, so much._

In turn, he listens to the sounds of Draco’s heart: _I am equal parts excited and scared and I will need you to take my hand and walk me through it, like you always do._

They hug until Teddy’s voice comes from the other side of the door, a stage whisper, “You’re not fucking, are you?”

“Teddy said fuck!” And it’s Reggie’s little voice now. _God, they’re very, very bad parents._

They disentangle and open the door to find seven pairs of eyes on them. God, why are they all here? Within the past six years, they’ve managed to stop speaking at the same time. Now, most times, Harry thinks it and Draco says it. So it doesn’t even surprise him when Draco says:

“Why are you all here, exactly?”

And apart from the twins, the rest look suspiciously pleased. Like five little kittens huddled around a large dish of cream. Lily speaks first. “Oh, we’ve just popped to the Ministry this morning.”

Oh, what the hell have they done now? Draco looks at Harry, a little panicked.

“Been to the registry office, you see,” says James, nonchalantly. 

Draco gasps.

“You didn’t! You wouldn’t! You DID NOT GET MARRIED IN THAT, TEDDY.” Draco points at Teddy’s rainbow coloured puffer jacket.

_Oh Gods. His baby. His babies! Eloping set a shit example if they think they can just go to the registry office on a Saturday morning. What were they thinking?_

James is the first to laugh, but Harry sees the blush, high in his cheeks.

“Not without us! Gin will have a meltdown,” argues Harry. Why is Draco so obsessed with what people wear all the time? His first born just got married and Harry wasn’t there to witness it, _that_ is the main worry. He feels his heart break a little bit in his chest.

_There is a look of mischief in James’ eyes that was there 5 years prior when they sat around the dinner table, Draco and Harry both hiding their left hands as much as possible in case the kids picked up on the rings before they had the chance to tell them about both the wedding and the babies, when James stands up and says “I’m in love with Teddy.” It had been a right mess. Mostly because James is all Potter and doesn’t know how to do things by halves, but also because everyone in the room looked at Harry simultaneously like they had expected him to lose his mind. James just about burst into tears when Harry very slowly, finally said, “Yes, I know. I take it this is you trying to tell me you’re dating? Because I’ve known for a while.” It should have taught everyone a final lesson on Harry-Potter-is-not-as-oblivious-as-he-seems but he very seriously doubts it. It works in his favour most times anyway._

It’s a memory Harry cherishes. He wonders if this, all of them standing in the big playroom, will become one that Harry comes back to and watches again and again, too.

“Guys. Come on. Did you?” He asks.

“We didn’t,” confesses Teddy. 

“Then, what? Stop this game, right now,” Draco demands, furiously.

Scorpius steps forward, after passing Reggie to Albus, who props the wee one on his hip with the practiced ease of a seasoned older brother.

The younger Malfoy reaches into his coat’s breast pocket and retrieves a piece of parchment, yellow and thick, and extends it to Draco, who grabs it immediately. Harry takes a step closer so he can read, too.

It does have the Ministry seal on, is the first thing he notices - Harry wants to joke that he would be happy if he didn’t have to see a Ministry document ever again - there was a reason he left the Aurors - but he doesn’t even have time to open his mouth before his eyes catch the rest of the words.

_“I, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy of The Chapel, Strathdon, AB36 8UX have given up my name Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy and have adopted for all purposes the name Scorpius Hyperion Potter-Malfoy._

_Signed as deed on December 19th, 2026 as Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy and Scorpius Hyperion Potter-Malfoy in the presence of Edward Remus Lupin of Lupin Cottage, Abergwyngregyn, Llanfairfechan LL33 0LP and James Sirius Potter of Lupin Cottage, Abergwyngregyn, Llanfairfechan LL33 0LP.”_

It’s signed by all three of them and it has the Minister’s seal on it.

It takes him a lot longer than it did Draco to finish reading the document because his eyes keep filling up with tears. Scorpius is watching them with nervous, expectant, fearful eyes. 

Words are all caught up in his throat. He swallows hard, blinks away the tears. He steps forward, careful not to crush the deed poll document, and pulls Scorpius into a hug.

“Oh, Scorp,” he hears Draco whisper as he is sandwiched between Malfoys. Well, Potter-Malfoys.

Fuck. _Potter-Malfoys. There’s five of them now. Christ._

It turns into a full family hug quickly. James and Teddy are on his right side, little Peony at their feet, grabbing at Harry’s knees. Albus and Lily take his left, Regulus still on Albus’ hip.

Harry is crying, Scorpius is crying, Draco is probably crying but will get away with it. Albus is pretending he has never cried in his life but will probably get roasted about it forever.

Teddy releases a puff of breath, then a wet chuckle. “I can’t believe you thought Jamie and I got married, you losers.” There’s a little laugh, a communal thing, like they’re all just one. 

They stay there, no one daring to be the first to let go. Harry regains his voice a little, lets his heart settle in his chest - warm, safe, buzzing with happiness. Draco will just have to forgive him for what he’s about to do.

“Oh, by the way, Draco will be the Headmaster of Hogwarts next year.”

The trouble with having such a big family is how loud it gets, he thinks to himself. The joy of having such a big family is how loud it gets. It’s never lonely, it’s never quiet, it’s never just him and his spiders under the stairs, and his brain doesn’t have the time to fall deep into the dark void of his memories. Draco slaps him on the back of his head as the children scream and shout unintelligible things in their excitement. Peony grabs at his leg again and he picks her up. She smiles at him, a smile so like Draco’s it makes his heart jump every time, and says, enunciating every word slowly, “I think everyone said fuck.”

He knows Draco will hex him hard, but he can’t help but think that he just can’t wait to tell the Weasleys.

*

_In his eyes, everything has always been bright. An insufferable white light that can’t be stopped. Funny, how that works. How one can grow up in the literal dark, be unloved and abused and touch-starved and yet: the world is nothing but bright light. It was, in fact, light before he was born. He came as an eclipse. Slow - so much that his mother didn’t think it was actually happening yet - eating up the light morsel by morsel and then, a cry, a whisper of adoration, furious sobbing and, for a second, complete darkness. And then, life went back to bright._

_No one else he knows is in constant light. He figures there is something wrong with him, even if he is afforded moments of shadow when the world feels kind: grey eyes looking straight into his, ablaze with recognition followed by a quiet “I can’t-I can’t be sure”, a chubby babe with bright blue hair holding his thumb for dear life, his children tucked up in bed and him knowing they’ll always be loved and cared for, that whatever happens they will never be cold and cramped and hungry._

_Alas, they’re only snippets of darkness that fill his heart and let him momentarily rest his eyes from the migraine-inducing ever constant light. It takes 40 years for Harry Potter to realise that he’s not broken, only incomplete. Because, one day, when he least expects it, he finds it:_ darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for finding my fic amongst so many other brilliant fics (this fandom, amirite?), giving it a chance and reading it. It honestly means the world to me.
> 
> This story was born of my own grief, the idea of Draco in my favorite pub, the concept of Harry writing articles about the fallen war heroes and a few other details I sprinkled in over 16 chapters. It ended up going places I never expected to take it and being an exorcism of my own demons, a love letter to a past self and a love letter to my very non-fannish husband.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts, feelings, questions, whatever. I'm always wasting time [on tumblr](https://onbeinganangel.tumblr.com) too if you want to reach out over there instead! <3
> 
> (Oh, and do google the post codes for Scorpius' deed poll because I hand picked some stunning places for your visual enjoyment. I mean, imagine living there!!)


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